Karen Ristuben

Karen Ristuben is Essex County Community Foundation’s program director for the Creative County Initiative. In this role, Karen helps to build countywide support for arts and culture through an ECCF initiative – supported by the Barr Foundation – designed to increase the vibrancy of our region by investing in the transformative power of arts and culture. Karen is an artist and arts administrator living in her hometown of Gloucester. She has served for 10 years as president of the Rocky Neck Art Colony, one of the nation’s oldest cultural communities, leading it through a time of growth and development for the benefit of future generations of artists, residents and visitors. Karen joined ECCF in September 2017 after a career that has spanned law, art education and international music production. Karen received her Master of Fine Arts from the Vermont College of Fine Arts, her BFA and teaching degrees from the School of the Museum of Fine Arts/Tufts University, and her JD from Suffolk University Law School.