Karl Davis poses for a portrait in this undated photo. He stepped down in February 2023 from his position as the executive director of Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts on the Umatilla Indian Reservation after almost a decade in the role.

MISSION — Crow’s Shadow Institute of the Arts is searching for a new executive director, and in the meantime, it has an interim director.

Karl Davis took the executive post at Crow’s Shadow near Mission in late 2014 after the institute had been without a steady boss for six years. In December, he announced to Crow’s Shadow board in December he would transition out of his role as the executive director at the end of February.

“Karl has been instrumental to the development and success of this organization, and he leaves us with a strong local and national reputation,” according to a statement from Crow’s Shadow.

“It has been an absolute honor to lead Crow’s Shadow for the past eight-plus years; serving the community through the arts is a special privilege,” Davis stated. “I am extremely proud of all that we have accomplished together. I will cherish my time here and miss it greatly.”

Since Davis’ first day, Crow’s Shadow’s budget and staff size has more than doubled, including the appointment of a traditional arts coordinator, marketing manager, apprentice printer and a new master printer.

“In the last five years of Karl’s leadership alone, we have generated more than $340,000 of income for artists through print sales and have been part of 24 prominent exhibitions,” the announcement stated.

Prints from Crow’s Shadow are in a number of other institutions, including 52 prints the Library of Congress has collected, more than 150 in the Museum of Fine Arts-Boston, the Smithsonian Museum of American Art and the National Museum of the American Indian. And the Jordan Schnitzer Family Foundation has collected 120.

Davis has helped elevate Crow’s Shadow’s success through print sales, artist-in-residence programs, traditional arts workshops and community events.

“He built long-lasting partnerships, secured ongoing funding and led CSIA successfully through the economic uncertainty of the last three years,” according to the statement, “ensuring that despite a global pandemic, programming remained stable and the organization’s budget remained healthy.”

Crow’s Shadow has brought on Sam Hopple, an independent curator, arts writer, educator and administrator, to take the helm during the search for a new executive director.

Hopple managed the galleries at Oregon College of Art and Craft from 2016-19, and was the exhibitions coordinator at Disjecta (now Oregon Contemporary). She is the co-founder of 60 Inch Center, an online publication covering art happenings in the Pacific Northwest, has published writings in the Oregon Visual Arts Ecology Project and museum catalogs.

She also co-directed S/PLI/T Projects (2016-17), which exhibited two person shows of emerging artists in established and alternative spaces. Hopple has curated numerous exhibitions independently in the Pacific Northwest, Los Angeles, Toronto and her home state of Colorado at Anderson Ranch Art Center. Her most recent work was in the curatorial department at the Aspen Art Museum.

Hopple completed her master’s of fine arts in art criticism and curatorial practice from Ontario College of Art and Design in Toronto, Canada in 2021, and received her bachelor’s in in 2012 in art design and media from Richmond University, London in 2012.

Crow’s Shadow announced it has planned an array of events for 2023, including artist residencies, gallery talks, traditional arts workshops and the return of its Monothon on Aug. 12.