Affiliates in the news! November enewsletter edition

Congrats to these Affiliates making news!  If you have a clipping highlighting a collaboration with the Smithsonian or with a fellow Affiliate you’d like to have considered for the Affiliate blog, please contact Elizabeth Bugbee.

Agua Caliente Cultural Museum (Palm Springs)
Agua Caliente exhibition selected for national spotlight
We are so honored to be able to bring such an important exhibition about Agua Caliente to the National Museum of the American Indian,” said Hicks, a member of the Prairie Band of Potawatomie Indians. “We feel that Native communities tell their own stories best, and we are thrilled to partner.”

Section 14 exhibit heads to Washington
We are a small, 1,600-square-foot museum, and we’ve got an exhibition that’s going to the Smithsonian National Museum of the American Indian,” an exuberant Michael Hammond, executive director of the Agua Caliente Cultural Museum gushed to the hundreds gathered Saturday night for the annual Dinner in the Canyons event. 

Section 14: The Dark Days (VIDEO)

Ohio History Center, Ohio History Connection (Columbus, Ohio)
Superman suit fitting for ’50s pop-culture exhibit at Ohio History Center (VIDEO)
“We thought it was an important cultural icon,” said Dwight Blocker Bowers, the curator of entertainment history for the national museum. “He was the first real superhero to have a huge effect on American culture.”

Iconic ‘Adventures Of Superman’ Suit Flies Into Ohio
The iconic outfit is on a special loan from the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.  The super suit was worn by Reeves, who portrayed mild-mannered reporter Clark Kent and his heroic alter ego, Superman from 1952 to 1958. It is first time ever the suit has appeared in the Buckeye State. 

George Reeves’ Superman suit flies into Columbus for Ohio History Center appearance
It’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s Superman — his suit, anyway — and it’s headed to Columbus. George Reeves’ iconic red, blue and yellow outfit goes on display Saturday at the Ohio History Center, part of the museum’s ongoing exhibit on the 1950s. The super suit was worn by Reeves, an Iowa native, during the TV series “Adventures of Superman,” which aired nationally from 1952 to 1958. The suit has been at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History for the past 30 years, but hasn’t been on display since 2006. Its appearance in Columbus is the costume’s first public showing in nearly a decade.

Reeves’ Superman suit on display at Ohio History Connection
On loan from the Smithsonian Institution, based in Washington, D.C., it is part of the facility’s “1950s: Building the American Dream” exhibit.

Anchorage Museum (Anchorage, Alaska)
Native wood carving makes a comeback at Anchorage Museum (VIDEO)
Traditional Native wood carving is coming back to the Anchorage Museum. Three master carvers – John Hudson (Tsimshian), Norman Jackson (Tlingit) and Donald Varnell (Haida) – are taking part in a week-long residency at the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center. .“Organizing this project is about teaching and education and sharing, maybe some arts that aren’t very well known with the broader public and with young people who are really interested in learning,” said Aron Crowell, Alaska director for the Smithsonian Arctic Studies Center.

Photos: Student carvers learn to make Alaska Native musical instruments
The Smithsonian’s artist residency program is focused on “material traditions,” with cedar being this particular program’s focus. Not only do master craftsmen get to pass on their skills, but museum conservators use the knowledge to better enable them to care for the artifacts in their custody.

South Dakota State Historical Society (Pierre, SD)
Museum curators, government officials welcome back horse effigy
Kevin Gover, a Pawnee and director of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian, said the Smithsonian can do what it does only because of its partnerships with smaller museums, such as the Cultural Heritage Center. The Smithsonian has a collection of about 800,000 American Indian items, and only 1 percent of these are on display in its two locations at any given moment.

Bounding home: Masterpiece of Plains Indian sculpture returns to South Dakota
And this weekend that sculpture returns to South Dakota, where for the next two years, visitors to the South Dakota Cultural Heritage Center will have the chance to compare it to two other horse effigies known to have been made by No Two Horns. One is on loan from the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of the American Indian.

Historical Society Adds New Smithsonian Affiliation Benefits To Membership Program
Beginning in October, the society is launching its new membership program which features the addition of Smithsonian Affiliate Member benefits for all new or renewing members at the Heritage Circle level.

North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences (Raleigh, NC)
Inside NC Science: Help capture wildlife on camera
Rather than stay up all night stalking wildlife, you can use camera traps – motion-triggered cameras – to record animals that live in a particular area. Biologists in the Biodiversity Lab at the N.C. Museum of Natural Sciences are using these cameras to document what species occur along urban-to-rural areas around Raleigh and Charlotte. This project, called eMammal, is a partnership between the museum and the Smithsonian Institution.

Denver Art Museum (Denver, CO) (a painting from SAAM is in this exhibition)
Artsplainer: Fritz Scholder’s Indian Paintings at the Denver Art Museum
In 2008, the National Museum of the American Indian mounted a retrospective of the work of the 20th-century Figurative artist Fritz Scholder. It titled the show “Indian/Not Indian,” referring to the identity question at the heart of Scholder’s work. Scholder, who died in 2005, was a quarter Luiseño, a registered member of the tribe, with a father who worked at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. But at points in his career Scholder denied the significance of that Native American heritage.

Frontiers of Flight Museum (Dallas, TX)
Google Expeditions Pioneer Program Launched For Students To Take Virtual Trips; What Could This Mean For The Future?
. The Android maker’s partners in the Expeditions Pioneer Program are the American Museum of Natural History, Alchemy VR, Frontiers of Flight Museum, The Smithsonian,.  

US Space and Rocket Center (Huntsville, AL)
Alabama’s U.S. Space and Rocket Center sets one-day attendance record with new exhibit
The U.S. Space and Rocket Center Saturday set a one-day attendance record while hosting Museum Day Live, an annual event hosted by Smithsonian magazine which includes participating museums across the country. During the free event, almost 5,500 people visited the Rocket City hotspot to enjoy and explore the state’s largest tourist attraction. 

Perot Museum of Nature and Science (Dallas, TX)
New fossils intensify mystery of short-lived, toothy mammals unique to ancient North Pacific
Paleontologists Louis Jacobs, SMU, and Anthony Fiorillo, Perot Museum, have identified a new species of marine mammal from bones recovered from the Aleutian island Unalaska in the North Pacific.

Sullivan Museum and History Center (Northfield, VT)
Smithsonian official to speak at Norwich
Kurin will talk about American history as reflected in iconic objects, as outlined in his most book “The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects.”

St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum (St. Augustine, FL)
New name and a renewed focus on maritime history
But under the new moniker of St. Augustine Lighthouse & Maritime Museum, the Smithsonian Affiliate organization aims to enhance its reputation in the field of maritime history and research as well.

Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA)
Museum of the African Diaspora Names New Deputy Director
The Museum of the African Diaspora announced the appointment of Michael Warr as its new deputy director. Warr will lead the museum’s operations and planning