Williams elected to Idaho Humanities Council board

Blair Williams, owner of The Art Spirit Gallery in Coeur d’Alene, was elected to serve a three-year term on the Idaho Humanities Council board of directors. She currently serves as a commissioner with the Idaho Arts Commission and is an advisory board member with the University of Idaho’s College of Arts and Architecture.

“Every day Blair puts her key in the door of The Art Spirit Gallery, and with a huge smile says to herself, ‘I get to be here today — working in the arts — in the city and state that I love,’” said a news release announcing her new Humanities Council role.

Williams, who grew up in Hayden Lake, discovered the world and profession of arts administration in 1998 as a board member with the Performing Arts Alliance in Coeur d’Alene. She has a degree in arts administration from Golden Gate University, which she earned while working for the California Confederation of the Arts in Sacramento. She later earned a degree in public relations and communication and owned and operated her own public relations firm. In 2020, she completed a certificate in Creative Placemaking through the New Jersey Institute of Technology.

For more than three decades, Williams has worked and volunteered with a broad array of nonprofit arts organizations. Since returning to Coeur d’Alene in 2011, she has been active in community development organizations such as the Coeur d’Alene School District, Coeur d’Alene Vision 2030, the Coeur d'Alene Arts & Cultural Alliance, the Coeur d'Alene Education Partnership, the Coeur d'Alene Downtown Association, Sorensen Magnet School for the Arts & Humanities, North Idaho College, University of Idaho, the Arts Ed Co-Lab and the Human Rights Education Institute.

Williams has volunteered her time with the Uplift Uptown project in Kellogg for more than two years. She announced that Uptown was recently selected to host a Museum on Mainstreet exhibit from the Smithsonian in 2023.