Executive Director Cheryl Crooks has built her life around telling stories both as a journalist and a professional photographer.

She began as an arts journalist and critic in Phoenix, receiving a critic fellowship at the O'Neill Theatre Institute, before spending ten years at TIME Magazine covering everything from presidential elections to the Los Angeles Olympics. After reporting on the first artificial heart transplant, she became one of the magazine's West Coast medical correspondents, and co-founded Independent Writers of Southern California, later serving as its President.

Upon moving to Bellingham, Cheryl opened her own portrait studio. She has since served on numerous arts and community boards, including Mount Baker Theatre, the Bellingham Festival of Music, and Western Washington University's College of Fine and Performing Arts Community Advisory Board.

Her contributions and impact on the community have been recognized twice with the Bellingham Mayor's Arts Award — in 2007 for her service to the arts, and again in 2018 on behalf of CASCADIA International Women's Film Festival, which she co-founded.

Outside of work, Cheryl is an avid kayaker and swimmer who loves hiking the nearby mountains and tending her garden. She's also a member of a vintage car club, and owned a rare 1954 Plymouth Belvedere station wagon that was cast in the supporting role in a Martha Coolidge film starring Patrick Swazye.