Gift Recognizes National Reach and Expanded Access of Museum’s Educational Programs
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art announced a record‑setting gift from Carolyn Brehm, vice chair of the museum’s board of trustees, funding a museum education leadership role. The gift establishes the Ambassador Richard A. Boucher Museum Educator position for a five‑year term, appointed to Jennifer Reifsteck, a longtime educator at the museum. By extension, the gift supports the national expansion and extended access of the museum’s education programs.
Reifsteck has led several of the museum’s most innovative education initiatives including the development of Artful Movement, the museum’s first educational program focused on teaching social-emotional skills through art.
“Expanding educational initiatives is a core part of the museum’s strategic plan to ignite curiosity and promote understanding of the arts and cultures of Asia in future generations,” said Chase F. Robinson, director of the National Museum of Asian Art. “Carolyn’s gift recognizes the museum’s direction toward the next generation of art education—one that meets the needs of educators today and is accessible onsite and online, locally and nationally.”
Developed during the COVID‑19 pandemic in collaboration with mindfulness education nonprofit Create Calm, Artful Movement teaches students to engage deeply with works of art through slow looking, physical movement, emotional awareness and reflective observation. The program responds to a growing need for classroom tools that foster social connection and emotional regulation.
“It all started with the Thunder God—the perfect metaphor for the pent-up emotions and uncertainty of the pandemic,” said Reifsteck referencing a 19th‑century painting by Katsushika Hokusai (1760–1849) from the museum’s Japanese collection. “Students would use words like ‘danger’ and ‘devil’ to describe this red figure, but their interpretations and emotional responses shifted when they learned that in East Asian cultures, red is a color of vitality, growth and luck.”
That moment inspired Reifsteck to incorporate meditation, movement and social emotional reflection into art education. Initially serving Washington, D.C., schools, Artful Movement has since become a national model, leading to a three-year expansion grant supported by the Smithsonian’s “Together We Thrive” initiative.
Through this grant, Artful Movement will expand to eight states, with a focus on under‑resourced and rural schools, through partnerships with nine Smithsonian affiliate museums and their educator networks. Reifsteck will lead the program’s national implementation through 2028 in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service | Smithsonian Affiliations (SITES | Affiliations). All program resources will also be made available online for future classroom use.
“Artful Movement demonstrates how museums can support learning that extends far beyond gallery walls,” said Brehm. “This gift honors Jennifer’s leadership and supports the museum’s broader effort to help students use art as a tool for reflection, empathy and connection.”
Brehm’s gift is made in honor of her late husband, Ambassador Richard A. Boucher (1951–2025), and his lifelong dedication to education and global engagement. Her previous gifts to the museum were instrumental in funding virtual museum educator roles during the pandemic and significantly expanding national student engagement.
During the 2024–2025 school year, the National Museum of Asian Art engaged more than 10,000 students and educators through onsite and virtual field trips and professional development programs.. The museum is also among the few to invest in full-time educational outreach within its conservation department, expanding access to art conservation research for young audiences.
This summer, from Monday, July 27, to Thursday, July 30, museum educators and schoolteachers from Iowa, Illinois, Maryland, Ohio, Oregon, Texas, Washington and Wyoming will be traveling to the museum to attend an Artful Movement training summit. The summit will be open to press.
Credit
Brehm’s gift benefits the National Museum of Asian Art’s Second Century Campaign, part of the Smithsonian Campaign for Our Shared Future, which advances a bold vision to strengthen education, research, and public engagement across the Smithsonian’s museums, libraries, research centers and the National Zoo.
The three-year grant Artful Movement: Social-Emotional Wellness from Coast-to-Coast is supported through Youth Access Grant funds from the Smithsonian Institution’s Together We Thrive initiative. SITES | Affiliations is a partner for the grant.
About Carolyn Brehm
Founder and CEO of Brehm Global Ventures LLC, Brehm is currently a retired corporate executive and lecturer with more than 40 years of experience in global government relations, public policy and international business. She worked at two Fortune 100 companies and several nonprofits and business associations over the course of her career in Washington and Asia. She currently advises clients on commercial advocacy, government affairs, public policy and political risk.
She also co-chairs the board of global health NGO Health x Partners and is a trustee of the National Museum of Asian Art. She sits on the board of governors at the University of New Haven and the board of advisors of Georgetown University’s Institute for the Study of Diplomacy. She has taught as an adjunct professor at Georgetown University and University of Michigan and was a regular lecturer on the Washington campus.
Brehm is a 1977 graduate of Georgetown University’s Walsh School of Foreign Service with a concentration in Asian studies and holds a Master of Business Administration in international business from the University of New Haven’s program in Nicosia, Cyprus. She was an AFS International exchange student in Mumbai, India, in 1972. Brehm speaks Mandarin and has studied French.
About Richard A. Boucher (1951–2025)
Richard Alan Boucher was an assistant secretary of state for South and Central Asia and ambassador to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development. He earned the esteemed rank of Career Ambassador in 2008 during his 32-year tenure in the United States foreign service and served in numerous posts under six different secretaries of state, becoming the longest serving spokesperson in the history of the U.S. State Department. After his retirement from federal service in 2009, Boucher held the title of deputy secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development before working as a visiting professor at multiple universities, where he instructed the next generation of diplomats.
Boucher graduated from Tufts University in 1973, where he studied English and French comparative literature. Shortly after graduating, he joined the Peace Corps, spending two years in Senegal and a year with USAID in Guinea before joining the State Department in 1977. He was fluent in Mandarin Chinese and French and proficient in German, Italian, Russian and Wolof.
About the Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art
The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Asian Art opened in 1923 as the United States’ first national art museum and the first Asian art museum in the country. It now stewards one of the world’s most important collections of Asian art, with works dating from antiquity to the present. The museum also hosts an unparalleled collection of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century American art.
Through an ambitious program of collecting, conservation, exhibitions, programming and research—both on-site and online—the museum serves as a global and national resource for understanding the arts and cultures of Asia and their interaction with America, past and present. By presenting the arts and cultures of Asia in their extraordinary richness, the museum furthers cross-cultural understanding and aims to exemplify foundational ideals of curiosity, creativity and respect.
Located on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., the museum is free and open 364 days a year (closed Dec. 25). The Smithsonian is the world’s largest museum, education and research complex and welcomes millions of visitors yearly. For more information about the National Museum of Asian Art, visit asia.si.edu.