March 2 through April 1
March is National Youth Art Month
The Midwest Museum of American Art presents the Elkhart Community Schools’ exhibition of selected work by middle school and high school students beginning Sunday, March 2 , and continuing on view through Sunday, April 1, 2007 . This event has been held annually for the past twenty-eight years in conjunction with National Youth Art Month.
The Mary Jane Parmater Keefe Award will be presented to six outstanding art students. The award winning students will be chosen on the basis of votes cast by 16 Elkhart art teachers to encourage students in the visual arts. Carolyn Keefe of Houston, Texas, continues her support of this prestigious award in memory of her late mother, a former Elkhart native and patron of the arts.
Kappa Kappa Kappa, Alpha Rho Chapter, for the 25th year will give monetary awards known as the Curator’s Choice Awards to ten students. In addition, Tri Kappa will sponsor a $500 Art Scolarship Award for a graduating Senior. For the fourth year, there will be a $500 Art Scolarship Award given by the Elkhart Evening Optimists. This is the first year for the Elkhart Junior Women to sponsor the three Middle School Awards of Excellence.
The Opening Reception for students, teachers, parents and invited guests will be held on Sunday, March 4, from 1:00pm to 3:00pm . Art Instructors Megan Woods and Ann Marie Effinger (West Side Middle School) are the Co-Chairs of this year’s exhibit. The String Quartet from Central High School will provide music during the opening.
Sponsors for Youth Art in Elkhart 2007 include The Robert Boyer Memorial Youth Art Fund, Elkhart Breakfast Optimists, Elkhart Luncheon Optimists, Elkhart Evening Optimists, Elkhart Junior Women, Carolyn Keefe of Houston, Texas, Heart City Kiwanis, Hopman Jewlers, tri Kappa, Alpha Rho Chapter, & State Farm Insurance – Rocky Enfield.
ANSEL ADAMS – Emotions in Black & White
The Midwest Museum is pleased to present a major exhibition of works by the important American photographer Ansel Adams (1902 to 1984). Opening to the public on April 6 , the exhibtition will continue through June 24 . The nearly three-month time period will allow ample opportunity for all members and te general public to view over forty classic black & white photographs by this American master. Few American artists reached a wider audience or enjoyed more widespread popularity in their own lifetime, than Ansel Adams. Now over two decades since his death his appeal and the enduring images he made of some of America’s most pictueresque wilderness have greater meaning than ever before.
A visionary photographer, a pioneer in photographic technique and a crusader for the environment, Adams took part in an extraordinary revolution in the way photography would be judged as an art form in the 20th Century.
Spot Light Exhibit
JOHN DOYLE: The Sharpshooters
MARCH 2 thru April 1
The Midwest Museum will present eleven works by Chicago born artist John Doyle from its permanent collection which have not been seen in twenty years. The exhibit will be located in the Mary Jane Parmater Keefe Gallery. Doyle, who rose to fame in the late 1970s, created several series of four-color lithographs prepresenting the human condition known collectively as “The Great Human Race”. Doyle executed most of his work in collaboration with master printer, Roland Poska, at the Fishy Whale Press in Rockford, Illinois between 1974 to 1989. The exhibit will feature a suite of lithographs, “The Sharpshooters”, Doyle developed in 1975 to coincide with America’s Bicentennial in 1976.
“The Sharpshooters” series represents American fighting men through the ages. Doyle interprets, with masterful drawings skills, the Continental soldier, Teddy Roosevelt’s “Rough Riders”, and a soldier from the Korean War to name but a few. These large-scale works on paper were the second major gift to the Midwest Museum of American Art from Richard A. Brodie of Birmingham, Michigan in 1978-79.
The Midwest Museum will offer its first educational excursion of the year on Tuesday, April 17 . The destination will be the Art Institute of Chicago where several special exhibits will be featured including “Cezanne to Picasso” . Over 250 works trace the modernist tendencies of these and many other artists. “The Hip, the Hot, and the Cool” is an exhibit on display concurrently featuring architects and designers from Chicago.
The fee for the trip will be $50 per person which includes your round-trip motorcoach seat, all museum admissions, and snacks. Join us for a day in Chicago by calling the Midwest Museum of American Art today to reserve your spot at 293-6660 .
UKRAINIAN EGG DEMONSTRATION
“PYSANKY”, the Ukrainian art of decorating Easter eggs will be demonstrated by gale Balmer on Palm Sunday afternoon, April 1, from 1:00 to 3:00pm at the Midwest Museum of American Art. This annual event has been held for over 20 years. It is an opportunity to view the craftsman at work, while discovering the array of designs and colors he employs. The demonstration is FREE to the public and finished work will be available for purchase.
Museum Receives Genesis Grant
The Midwest Museum of American Art is pleased to receive another year of funding from the Genesis Grant Program of the City of Elkhart. For fiscal 2007, the museum will receive $15,000 for a series of changing exhibition and educational programming. Thanks goes to Genesis for keeping the visual arts alive for all citizens.
If you are doing your Spring cleaning early… remember the Midwest Museum is looking for donations of “unique junk-tique” for its Artist’s Attic fund raiser sale. You may call the museum for pick up of objects, books, furniture, reproduction prints, travel souvenirs, statuary, ceramics, etc. at 293-6660 . The items will be places on sale this June during a two-day event which benefits the museum’s educational and acquistion funds. Remember – one person’s junk is another person’s treasure! The dates for the Artist’s Attic sale will be Friday, June 8 and Saturday, June 9 .
TRIBUTES
The Midwest Museum of American Art gratefully acknowledges gifts in honor or in memory of special friends. Notes of acknowledgement are sent by the Museum to those honored or to the families of those memorialized. Recent memorials and donations to specific funds include:
In Memory Of
Robert Boyer (*by Rita Burns, Mary Helvey, Dixon & Phyllis Prentice, David & Maria Solow)
Marie Colando (*by Brian & Lisa Byrn)
Janet Derrenberger (*by Paul & Betty Thomas)
Dr. James Finfrock (*by Jane Burns)
Charlotte Forney (*by Connie & Ron Minzey)
John C. Heipley (*by David & Maria Solow)
Sonia M. LaRocque (*by Tom & Dot Corson)
William F. Martin (*by Jane Burns, Tom & Dot Corson, Paul & Betty Thomas, Dick & Anne Treckelo)
Lowell Metzler (*by Elkhart High School – Class of “41”, Jane Burns)
Anne Schlasser (*by Alice Holtz)
Harriet Parmater (*by Connie & Ron Minzey)
Marshall I. Robinson (*by Elkhart High School – Class of “41”)
In Honor of Jeanne Wells’ Birthday (*by Eleanore Koppin)
(D.R.)