Kimberly Murdza is waiting for a set of keys.
They are the only keys to the Museum of Contemporary Art Flagstaff (MOCAF), an industrial art gallery located off Blackbird Roost, and for the last couple of days, they have been wayward, being passed around from person to person, artist to artist, the gallery a space that is shared not owned.
While this evasive set of keys can be a nuisance at times, Murdza says that experiences like this are true to the spirit of MOCAF, a nonprofit that was founded by and for the arts, but over the last couple of months, things have changed.
At the start of the year, nearly the entire MOCAF board was compelled to step away from their duties due to the bylaw’s term limits. Andres “Dapper Dre” Aduato, the executive director, was also forced to leave.
These departures left many administrative vacancies and only two individuals to cover them: Murdza and photographer Margeaux Bestard.
Murdza was nominated and soon after, took on the role of executive director.
Now, as she navigates the logistics of managing a new board, gaining access to the website, changing the Venmo credentials, making a copy of the keys and reimagining the way they do business, she has to put on the Group Show, a flagship event for MOCAF and the first under new leadership.
It’s an unwieldy project that is taxing for the volunteer-run organization, but Murdza says, maintaining the mission of a gallery like MOCAF is as important as finding a sustainable path forward.
“I like that the walls are not as smooth or clean, that it doesn’t have that standard gallery look, right? But we do need the lights to stay on, and we need a heater, and we need to know where the bills are mailed and all these little things that one might assume are easily accessible. These are the things that we’re navigating,” she said.
Murdza’s journey into the world of art and MOCAF began at one of Dapper Dre’s pop-up shows back in 2016.
For 15 years, her career has been in finance, working her way up from being a teller at Chase to a multi-site branch manager, but her first passions were in nonprofits.
She did a year with AmeriCorps, a decade with Habitat for Humanity of Northern Arizona and has served on the boards of many humane organizations, but Murdza had never worked in arts and culture, though it was an area she always found interesting.
So when she found herself at this show, she was intrigued yet uncertain, a fish out of water when something caught her eye.
“There were these three paintings hanging from the ceiling in this tiny, little living room—it’s like this little house party—and I loved the work, was very intrigued by it,” Murdza said. “It kind of had a little bit of mystery to it. Definitely very contemporary work, which I love, and I was like, ‘Oh, I want that. Who did it?’”
A friend told her that the artist was Jacques “Cazo” Seronde, also known as Starbiter.
Meeting Cazo was a turning point for Murdza. His art drew her into the local art scene and introduced her to MOCAF and the sprawling network of creatives surrounding it.
In 2013, Cazo, alongside another painter named William Ambrose, returned to Flagstaff after a season of travel, feeling inspired to make art, but after shopping some venues in town, they found themselves underwhelmed by the available options.
Cazo said, “I was living in, sort of, an industrial space downtown, and we decided late one night to just have a show, a pop-up show out of my house, which was, you know, concrete floors, white walls, not much furniture. It’s perfect.”
Cazo, Ambrose and Nick Geib, a friend and filmmaker, laughed and bounced around a bunch of names for their gallery opening until they landed on the Museum of Contemporary Art Flagstaff, a cheeky name at the time, but it stuck because they believed in the quality of their work and the need for a venue with the ability to market itself as a space for unabashed and powerful contemporary art from artists with a diverse range of backgrounds.
“A point of pride for the MOCAF shows, definitely in the past and I’m certain in the future, is to have Group Shows, which is sort of the year’s highlight, to have artists of many different backgrounds and [at many different] stages in their career,” Cazo said.
“So artists who have maybe never shown their work publicly but have been working furiously at home show an exhibit right next to someone like Sky Black or Shonto Begay, and I just love that juxtaposition and that power and that inspiration that can go both ways. You don’t see that often in Flagstaff, actually anywhere, and it’s a beautiful thing.”
The founding members of MOCAF believed strongly in this mission, but Cazo said their ability to execute on their vision proved to be more challenging than they originally anticipated.
So when Murdza met Cazo in 2016 and heard about the struggles that artists face when balancing their creative freedom and financial stability, she wanted to help.
Before she got involved on the board, she started volunteering at events and advising the team on the nuances of the business from finance and marketing to simply buying art, making her, years later, the obvious choice for executive director.
From her current vantage point, Murdza hopes to focus her efforts on establishing gallery hours and selling art in a way that benefits both the venue and artist.
“It’s like a hard balance right? Like you want to share the work. You want it to be accessible, but you also want the artists to be successful,” she said. So, you know, that’s where institutions like MOCAF are really, really important because there needs to be more platforms for artists.”
On top of instituting gallery hours, MOCAF will be asking for a 20% commission on the art that is shown. The artists have the opportunity to contribute more, but Murdza emphasizes that this is a generous rate when compared to other, similar venues.
Valuing the artwork and the gallery has become crucial, and with the expertise and eagerness of the new board, MOCAF is revisiting the way that it markets artists.
For the upcoming Group Show on April 26, every artist was highlighted with a short biography and a summary of their work.
“We have a lot of artists in the community,” Murdza said. “A lot of people don’t know the artists in the community, and we haven’t had the resources to promote them. And now, we have people who know how to do those things and have expertise in that. So we’re starting to do that. Which is great.”
The participating artists this year are Chrysanthi Afiye, Kate Cochran, Jihan Gearon, Seneca Kristonsdottir, Helen Hawley, Tai Lipan, Bryan David Griffith, Tor Sanden, Steve Schaeffer, Brooke Shaden, Chiara Skabelund and Jeff Urdang.
There is still a lot of foundational work that needs to be done, Murdza admits, but she sees that the artistic community continues to thrive and wants to have a foundation to continue to build upon toward a more sustainable future.
And Cazo and the rest of the original founders believe in MOCAF’s new leadership and know that the future is bright.
“I think the same is true now as it was in 2013, and it’s probably true for all time, that supporting the creatives in our community is supporting the health of our community,” he said.
“The underlying health and well being of a community is represented strongly in the creative process of the community members, and there’s no better way to support the creativity of our neighbors than by showing up to the event, maybe purchasing art. That’s what it is for us. It’s to bring people together. It’s to celebrate beauty and purpose and passion and vision. That’s the goal. And it’s an age-old tradition, and it’s needed just as much now as it ever was, maybe even more so. To bring people together, to celebrate arts and creativity is paramount.”
Just need to find those keys first.
The MOCAF Group Show is open to the public and will feature live sets by DJ Quick Kay as well as singer/songwriter Matthew Henry Hall. Admission is free for youth and students, $10 recommended donation. Gallery hours available April 27 and April 28 from 12-4 p.m. MOCAF is located at 555 Blackbird Roost #5.