Originally Aired: March 13, 2022
Guest: Claire Swinford
Claire Swinford is the Executive Director of Bee Vradenburg Foundation, a privately endowed grantmaker advancing the relevance, resilience, and greatness of the arts in the Pikes Peak Region. She is responsible for strategic leadership, social justice work, community partnerships and capacity-building initiatives for the region’s cultural sector. She is the 2016 recipient of the Mayor’s Young Leader Award in Creative Industries, and was named a Rising Star by the Pikes Peak Arts Council for her cultural advocacy as well as her work as a painter. Swinford points to the Pikes Peak Region’s robust creative economy as one of the top reasons for a young professional to live in southern Colorado, and she enjoys exploring local galleries, museums, breweries and performance venues with her husband, also a working artist. A proud member of the advisory board for the UCCS Galleries of Contemporary Art (GOCA), she is also an avid skier, cyclist and proud “parent” of two rescue pets.