Meet Amy Lewis Hofland

VISIT DALLAS: You’ve built a career centered around art, culture, and connection. What first drew you to this path?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: I have been in an “art house” all of my life. Thanks to my compassionate Mother, art was a portal to explore and create through nature experiences, museums and gatherings with artists from across the world. One of my favorite rooms of our “art house” was a tiny closet she gave me as a room of my own, and she had it wallpapered with rainbows.

VISIT DALLAS: Were there any early experiences or influences that shaped how you view the role of art in people’s lives?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: Thana Lauhakaikul was a beloved professor of sculpture while I was a student at the University of Texas at Austin. I did not realize it at the time, but this was my first immersive engagement with Asian Art. We explored site-responsive environmental installation, art methodologies from Thailand and Buddhist Philosophy. Thana’s studio was an expansive place of self-discovery for me as a thinker, a creative and artist.

VISIT DALLAS: Throughout your career, you’ve helped create spaces for cultural exchange and understanding. What continues to inspire your work today?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: One of the great gifts of our merger with the University of Texas at Dallas has been a return to the classroom. Each semester I am honored to teach twenty-four brilliant students from the Hobson Wildenthal Honors College in a course called “Understanding Art”. I am their teacher, but they teach me and inspire me to keep pulling for bright futures, possibilities and wonder in every moment.

VISIT DALLAS: Throughout your career, you’ve helped create spaces for cultural exchange and understanding. What continues to inspire your work today?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: Dallas is home. I have lived here most of my life and my favorite moments are driving into Dallas and siting the gorgeous horizon of our downtown. We have grown up together: a city deeply committed to the arts and intercultural education, a museum that celebrates the arts and cultures of Asia, and a leader in me, seeking the powerful liminal spaces where art and compassion create healing and love in community.

VISIT DALLAS: The arts scene in Dallas continues to grow and evolve. What excites you most about where it’s headed?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: Look south! I am so excited for the regeneration of the neighborhoods near and South of Downtown Dallas: the Cedars, West Dallas, Deep Ellum and beyond. Our city leaders saw this starlit opportunity decades ago – and here we are! I love that we are leading with culture: the Cedars, the Cedars Union, the Longhorn Ballroom, the Tin District where artists cultivate thriving neighborhoods in a truly responsive and natural way. I appreciate how developers like Matthews Southwest have long held an integrous commitment for place and the history of place.

VISIT DALLAS: Why is it important for a destination like Dallas to offer spaces like the Crow Museum that connect local and global cultures?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: In order to love thy neighbor we have to be able to know our neighbors. The synergy in Dallas for art and culture and neighborhoods has fostered a strong and networked system of relationships. We take for granted that, as art leaders, we can walk across the street to meet, to be inspired and to engage in true co-creation. The Crow Museum was built on the strength of co-created authentic and meaningful experiences: with our partner institutions and with the tremendous and eager support of so many committed communities.

VISIT DALLAS: Leading a museum requires both creative vision and strategic leadership. What skills have been essential to your success?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: Humans spend more waking hours of our precious lives at work than anywhere else. I believe a culture of showing up to do hard work needs to be in the context of having fun. My philosophy for work was catalyzed by my time as a camp counselor and director at Brush Ranch Camps in Santa Fe New Mexico. As a team, I recognize that all work is noble. Like summer camp, we show up, we work really hard to deliver quality experiences to audiences of all ages -and we make it fun. I support a culture where each employee is truly for each other’s success. Like the late Trammell Crow said so famously, “work is more fun than fun”.

VISIT DALLAS: Throughout your career, have there been moments when you realized the impact your work had on others?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: During Covid, I took my practice of mindfulness to the virtual space. At the time, it was a healing space for me and an extension of the Crow Museum of Asian Art’s commitment to wellbeing and wellness in a period of unexpected isolation. Six years later I am still remembered for those videos and is deeply meaningful to me that I could be there -even virtually—to a community I don’t think I realized was present. As a leader, I want to keep arriving as a non-anxious presence and to teach others they can, too. Art can be our gateway to mindfulness, and mindfulness can be our gateway to each other.

VISIT DALLAS: The Crow Museum creates moments of connection through art and storytelling. Is there an experience or exhibition that stands out as especially meaningful to you?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: My favorite time at work is time spent in the galleries. On a tour with a second grade class, I was about to introduce a work of art representing the Hindu god Ganesha, half-boy, half-elephant. I saw a young boy on the tour light up with recognition. I asked him to share the story of Ganesha’s mystical birth with his classmates and he eagerly launched in to share the story of Parvarti and Shiva and how Ganesha came to be. When the tour ended, the teacher shared with me that the boy had just arrived with his family and for the past few weeks remained silent at school. Walking up to a work of art he found familiar was a moment where this young man also began to find his voice.

This moment keeps reminding me how important it is to invite, to ask and to stay present for the receiving, the ideas and the answers, and to honor the sacred space of sharing. Museums can be places where we can talk about what we see, how we feel and what we think. We can disagree about what we think in a safe space. This is a practice we need more than ever: skillful ways to be together in agreement and in disagreement. Art offers us this harbor.

VISIT DALLAS: The ‘Cause She Can campaign celebrates women who embody Dallas’ Maverick, Can-Do Spirit. What does that mindset mean to you?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: The Can-Do Spirit is in all of us. If we believe we can, we do. This is vision. Dallas is a place that nurtures and inspires visionary leaders. I have been a visionary leader to the Crow Museum: listening deeply, watching and learning from the community voices to understand what kind of museum most lovingly and appropriately represents the collective stories of Asia in our time. I believed our future into being by believing I am up to something bigger than myself: for a city I love.

VISIT DALLAS: What advice would you give to women who want to build careers in the arts or cultural leadership?

AMY LEWIS HOFLAND: One- try out museums of all sizes: apply for internships in large and small museums. Both offer very different cultures of how work happens in the fields of art and both experiences will deeply enrich your leadership.

Two-be a customer of the arts. Being in the room where it happens will teach you so much about work and life and the intersections of both. Attend dance, theater, poetry and art events often. Get to know the members and begin to understand how the systems of these companies work and engage with communities.

Three- hand write the thank you notes. And write often. This will set you apart: a thoughtful, heartfelt letter relays care and consideration and sends a message that you took the time to acknowledge and appreciate the person you are writing. This is a rare gift and the world needs more hand-written letters.

Four- Sit. Find the time for silence and contemplation. Leaders need silence, awareness, togetherness and understanding (Nhat-Hanh). Being a mindful leader offers you spaciousness and reserve to arrive with clarity and as a non-anxious presence. This, too, like compassion, is infectious.

What is one Dallas place you never get tired of recommending?
The Cedars Union

Where do you go in Dallas to recharge and reflect?
The dock near the new White Rock Lake Boathouse (next to the Filter Building) thirty minutes before sunrise

If someone has just one day in Dallas, other than the Crow Museum, what should absolutely be on their itinerary?
The Dallas Arboretum

Finish this sentence: I believe anything is possible if…People are truly for each other's success: loving each other into future hopes and dreams.