PEOPLE
Carrying on a legacy of excellence with a dose of irrepressible encouragement.
Director
ALEX DAVIS
Alex Davis is a forward-looking leader who has invested in our region's arts and culture for twenty years. She brings inspiration and deep belief, working for a world where artists are embraced as leaders and must never apologize for their creativity.
A published author, Davis served as Board President of The Cabin literary center, ensuring generational diversification of audiences and a sustained legacy of exceptional board leadership. Originally from the south, Davis started her career with PBS and NPR stations in Atlanta, Georgia. With a commitment to the arts, stewardship of culturally significant sites—modern and historic—as well as joie de vivre in education, Davis helped build the foundation and clear the way for an historic Hyde Park cathedral's restoration and completion, now home to a youth arts institute with imaginative programming that breaks all the rules.
Davis has led significant public initiatives including the Livable City campaign in the office of the Boise Mayor, and Go On, Idaho, a broad coalition and impactful multi-year statewide campaign for higher education.
Inspired by the creative genius and collaboration on display in our region every day, Davis is a strategic thinking partner and steadfast champion for artists, arts leaders and people who envision stronger, more vibrant communities everywhere.
Program Consultant
RACHEL REICHERT
Rachel Reichert is a program consultant and artist working at the intersection of artist-centered spaces, residency development, and cultural programming. Her work focuses on building and supporting initiatives that expand access, foster mentorship, and sustain creative communities.
Reichert brings nearly two decades of experience developing programs rooted in place, history, and artist-led inquiry. From 2015–2022, she led the multi-phase restoration and public programming of the James Castle House, stewarding the historic home and studio as a dynamic site for artists and public engagement. In 2014, she co-founded The Atlanta School, an experimental art school and residency in Atlanta, Idaho, where she helped cultivate a long-running platform for collective learning and exchange. She has also overseen the preservation and activation of the Erma Hayman House in Boise, and from 2022–2025 supported the Ruth Foundation for the Arts in launching national programs and developing an artist-centered project space in Milwaukee.
Across these roles, Reichert has developed a practice grounded in thoughtful program design, organizational development, and long-term cultural stewardship. She works closely with artists, foundations, and historic sites to shape initiatives that are responsive to both community and context.
Program Assistant - Alexa Rose Practicum
HALLIE MAXWELL
Working with installation, audio, video, drawing and performance, Maxwell earned the International Sculpture Center's Outstanding Student Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award 2023, and was recognized as Emerging Artist of 2025 by the Mayor's Award for Excellence.
EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE
Terri Schorzman
Executive Committee
Michael Cullen
Executive Committee
Jane Williamson
Executive Committee
Founders
KEN & ALEXA ROSE HOWELL
"My late wife, Alexa Rose, brought this electrical engineer to life and and created a home filled with art and whimsy. Alexa was a puppeteer, a poet, a pianist, a linguist, a humorist, a watercolor artist, and so much else. Her connection to and her desire to support Boise Valley’s Art Community and its individual artists was the inspiration for this Foundation. What began as an endeavor to support our family has grown to aid an extended family of community artists. Alexa’s vision and her Foundation will hopefully continue for generations to come." Howell was named a distinguished preservationist by the Idaho State Historic Preservation Council and is the recipient of numerous Orchid Awards from Preservation Idaho.
ALEXA ROSE PRACTICUM
Emerging artists significantly shape the Foundation's programs and initiatives through their hard work, experiences, intuition and guidance.
2025/2026
RYAN MARSH
A writer and philanthropist, Marsh founded BackYard Artists as a vibrant new space to fund and conduct experimental collaborations, publications and live experiences by emerging artists—always ambitious and sometimes wildly successful.
2025
TEAL GARDNER
Founder of the Ecogeoglyphic Observatory, Gardner's work uses historical and present day development as sites for inquiry into interrelationships among human, and more-than-human beings. Gardner was awarded the 2025 Frontier Fellowship, supported by The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts.
2024/2025
MUNGO LIGOYA
Stage headliner, dancer, choreographer, public artist, costume designer, and recording artist, Ligoya is enrolled at Savannah College of Art and Design in Atlanta and works as a gallery preparator.
2023/2024
RUBY STIGERS
Trained in dance, with competencies in research and arts event production, Stigers pursued higher ed in New York and works in the independent bookselling business.
In Acknowledgment of Brilliant Hearts and Minds
Through inspired thinking by some of our region's most skilled arts professionals, the Alexa Rose Foundation got an extraordinarily strong start. Due in large part to their belief in the mission and the generous-hearted work of dedicated staff, board volunteers, artistic advisors, trustees, and selection panelists, beginning in 2014 private dollars were wisely invested in hundreds of local artists and public art that will shape our community for decades to come. Thank you!