Charlotte Eyerman ushers in a new era at the Monterey Museum of Art.

It’s been one month since Charlotte Eyerman’s been on the job as the executive director of the Monterey Museum of Art, and she hasn’t stopped moving. Ask what’s on her to-do list, she replies: “I couldn’t possibly tell you my whole list. I hardly spend any time sitting at my desk.”

Having moved here with her husband and school-age daughter from the Los Feliz neighborhood of Los Angeles, she’s been criss-crossing Monterey County.

“The [museum] board had a very thoughtful, planned introduction to the community,” Eyerman says. “As soon as my appointment was made public, I started setting up [meetings].”

That’s included museum members, docents, sponsors, artists and the board itself; Julie Packard of the Monterey Bay Aquarium, Meg Biddle and Marcia Perry of Youth Arts Collective, and Dan Baldwin of the Community Foundation for Monterey County. Chris Winfield threw her a party at his Winfield Gallery, she drove to Salinas to visit Colleen Bailey of National Steinbeck Center, and walked across the street from the museum’s Pacific Street location to see Monterey City Manager Fred Meurer.

Connections, as well as motion and depth, inform Eyerman’s career.

She was born in St. Louis, but has lived most of her adult life in California, earning a masters in 1990 and a doctorate in 1997 from UC Berkeley, both in History of Art with specialization in 19th-century French art. She taught, mostly art history, at Union College in New York, USC in L.A., Art Center College of Design in Pasadena and Southern Methodist University in Paris. Then she began an ascent up the Southern California art world food chain, first with museum consulting at Norton Simon and LACMA (Los Angeles County Museum of Art), then what she describes as her “first serious position” – assistant curator of painting at the Getty, from 2002-06. Then she returned to her hometown for an auspicious stint with the St. Louis Art Museum for the next three years, where she was curator and department head of modern and contemporary art. There, she oversaw exhibitions of Jeff Koons and Bill Viola, and consulted on the lauded Action/Abstraction: Pollock, de Kooning, and American Art, 1940-1976.

Then came an “unexpected and compelling opportunity” back in California.

“She had such a wide range of experiences that all seemed to be intersecting at where the museum is.”

“I got an inquiry from Larry Gagosian out of the blue to work at Gagosian Gallery in Beverly Hills,” she says. “I was attracted to the international and high-level exhibitions they did.”

The dozen Gagosian galleries worldwide count on their roster the most famed names in modern art – de Kooning, Hopper, Twombly, Takashi, Picasso, Koons, Warhol – accounting for hundreds of millions in sales. Gagosian ranked number 1 or 2 on “The Power 100” determined by ArtReview for much of the 2000s.

“It was interesting exploring,” Eyerman says of the experience as the director of the Beverly Hills branch. “But I am a museum person. I believe in them as a community resource. I was happy to go back to nonprofits.”

That meant directing the French Regional American Museum Exchange, Inc. (FRAME), a consortium of 13 French and 13 American regional museums that share resources, exchange scholarly work and put together mutual shows. That meant guest curating at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles, including its contribution to the acclaimed Pacific Standard Time initiative, and a special exhibition opened last Tuesday called Just Add Water, commemorating the 100-year anniversary of the Los Angeles Aqueduct. When she was looking for a way back into a nonprofit museum, a search firm was looking for an executive director for MMA.

“She had such a wide range of experiences,” says Mel Burnett, MMA’s Board of Trustees president, “that all seemed to be leading to this moment, intersecting at where the museum is. It’s a great synchronistic moment. She was exactly what we were looking for on every level – experience, education, interests, motivation.”

Eyerman sees her MMA mission as a blend of teacher, manager and promoter.

“I’m an art historian by training. I believe in art so I’m very much an art-firster,” she says. “My primary responsibility to the museum is supporting and galvanizing the staff, engaging with the community, reporting to the board of trustees, [creating] an environment where very talented people can do their work.”

She’s gathering information to help her foster what she describes as a “dynamic, sustainable organization that takes the fiscal management part very seriously.

“I’m a big believer in strategy and planning,” she says. “I like getting people to stand up for art, participating.”

Eyerman says she wants the museum to be accessible to all, with no prerequisite of arts education needed. She shares one of the strategic goals of the board: collaboration. She adds that the museum has exhibits planned for a year out, after which her influence may become more apparent – and it’s too early in her tenure to say definitively the extent of what she will do. For now she keeps moving.

“I’m going to a lot of events, a lot of meetings,” she says. “It’s all about building relationships.” 

MONTEREY MUSEUM OF ART is open 11am-5pm Wed-Sat, 1-4pm Sun. 372-5477, www.montereyart.org

This Sunday, sound healer and cosmic folk singer Buddy Comfort.

• Central Coast Art Association and the Arts Council for Monterey County present an all-day …