Introducing Kris Bowden, Bow Seat’s New Social Media and Brand Engagement Manager

May 27, 2022

Hello, world!

My name is Kris Bowden (pronounced like when you say “take a bow,” the same way as “Bow,” in Bow Seat) and my preferred pronouns are she or they. I’m so excited to join Bow Seat Ocean Awareness Programs as the new Social Media and Brand Engagement Manager. I’m passionate about people, all forms of art, and the environment.

I view social media as an art form in itself. Curating posts that resonate with and motivate people excites me. Many of my ideas come to life by getting into the same creative flow process experienced while creating art. I also enjoy empowering others to express themselves and work to create a truly collaborative space by sharing others’ work. When I found Bow Seat, I immediately felt inspired, and with over a decade of creative nonprofit social media and marketing experience, it’s the perfect fit!

Thinking about working with teens and the arts has made me look back on my own childhood experiences. The band room was my second home in middle and high school as I spent eight years as a percussionist. I fell in love with art my last two years of high school in my intro, drawing and ceramics classes. I also lit up in my English classes during my senior year. In Fantasy, we read The Hobbit and The Lord of the Rings trilogy, and each day that teacher would show us Tolkien’s art and read aloud in character. And it was in my Creative Writing class that I wrote my college acceptance letter on a field trip at Walden Pond. I’ll always remember a line from it, “We are the voice of the land,” which helped anchor my life ever since with environmentalism as one of my core values.

In college, I changed majors three times. Originally I wanted to be a musician or an artist and either join a symphony orchestra or become a potter, but tendonitis rerouted both of those plans. Engineering was my next choice, but I quickly found that my creativity didn’t have an outlet in that field. English was next, but it still didn’t seem like the right fit. Then I had an aha moment in a discovery course on Human Development, and enjoyed learning everything I could about the human lifespan. I find that experience helps me relate to people of any generation.

One of the best college experiences I had was going to London, England, for a semester studying abroad. I took a course on the London Classical Music Scene, and explored the British Isles with classmates in a course on Roman Britain. Exploring art, music, theater and museums in other cultures has been a passion of mine ever since. During a trip in 2018 to Tromsø, Norway, a small city in the arctic circle, I visited the aquarium, Polaria, which pointed out the effects of climate change in a more profound way than I had ever experienced. That rekindled my passion for the environment, and when I got back to the states, I led the team I was on at my last job to become a certified “Green Office” by implementing procedures that were more sustainable.

I grew up going to the beaches in New Hampshire and now live in the NH seacoast, with my adult child, and our dog and cat. We have always been involved in the arts and music. When my child was very little, we volunteered in the local community art programs for toddlers. I later taught in the Waldorf school they attended, which was a fully-immersive experience in arts, music and nature. I continued to enjoy volunteering in art classes throughout their time in elementary school whenever I could. And I was so proud to pass on my snare drum from 5th grade when they followed in my footsteps and started taking percussion classes.

In my free time, my child and I enjoy theater, and try to attend everything put on by Theatre in the Open, a Newburyport, MA-based nonprofit known for its original storytelling, family-friendly productions and engaging youth arts education programs. I also enjoy volunteering at the Alpha Boys School in Kingston, Jamaica, and have been curating an online radio station featuring alumni of their transformational youth music programme since co-founding it in 2013.

I’m so excited to be a part of the Bow Seat crew and participate in judging the Ocean Awareness Contest. And even more, I can’t wait to share the powerful works by past, present and future participants with the world.