Tag Archive for: museum of arts and sciences

Kudos Affiliates!! February 2022

Kudos to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The National Mississippi River Museum and Aquarium (Dubuque, IA) received a $10,000 grant from the Association of Zoos and Aquariums’ “Spring into Action” campaign to provide opportunities for people in the community to do conservation work and to restore and preserve habitat areas.

An anonymous donor contributed $25 million to the Denver Museum of Nature & Science (Denver, CO) and its supporting organization, the DMNS Foundation. Ten percent of the donation will help with staffing, equipment and launch activities. The remaining will help establish an endowed fund to support the museum’s collections conservation work.

Framingham State University (Framingham, MA) received a $146,785 grant from the National Endowment for the Humanities. The grant will fund a series of workshops and focus on using digital humanities tools to explore issues of race in America, both historically and in the current moment. Potential topics for exploration include tracing the transatlantic slave trade, uncovering Native American presence in colonial New England, identifying local abolitionist movements, and showcasing contemporary African American and Latinx literature.

YIVO Institute for Jewish Research at the Center for Jewish History (New York, NY) received $7 million in funding for the launch of the Vilna Online Collections. The online collection is an international project to digitally reunite its pre-WWII archive located in New York City and Vilnius Lithuania.

The National Endowment for the Arts announced the first round of recommended awards for fiscal year 2022 featuring the following Affiliate recipients:

  • Arizona State Museum (Tucson, AZ) ($40,000) to support a professional development program for emerging and master folk artists. Emerging artists studying with acclaimed Indigenous weavers and teachers, Porfirio Gutiérrez (Zapotec) and Barbara Teller Ornelas (Navajo), will receive instruction in using natural dyes and weaving. The artists will learn skills associated with the museum, such as object handling and exhibit design and will culminate with an exhibit produced by the artists that will showcase their weavings and the master artists’ collaborative work.
  • Japanese American National Museum (Los Angeles, CA) ($40,000) to develop a traveling exhibition featuring artist Glenn Kaino. Based on the fictional story of three young Japanese Americans in U.S. internment camps during World War II, and inspired by the conflicts found in the traditional fable of “The Fox and the Stork” in which the two animals play pranks on one another to their detriment, Kaino analyzes the challenges that American-born citizens faced while imprisoned in the camps. The story will be presented in multiple formats by Kaino, including a monumental work outside the museum and inside, a series of new paintings and cinematic vignettes that convey the entirety of this story.
  • History Colorado (Denver, CO) ($20,000) to support the collection, digitization, and exhibition of artwork produced during the Colorado Chicano Civil Rights Movement of the 1960s-70s. The exhibition will explore Chicano identity and empowerment, displaying historic works alongside works by contemporary Chicano artists.
  • Kona Historical Society (Kealakekua, HI) ($10,000) to support a concert series that presents songs, stories, and the history of the land of Hawai’i. Local Hawaiian musicians will perform combining music and storytelling in their presentations. These free in-person concerts will be livestreamed on social media, and each concert will be recorded for future online viewing.
  • Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) ($35,000) to create a writing fellowship program for youth. Programming will feature BIPOC (Black, Indigenous, and People of Color) teaching artists skilled in a variety of writing disciplines such as poetry, fiction, script, and graphic novels/zine-making. The program will provide local high school students, who include middle to low-income Arab-American, Black, and Latinx families, with opportunities for self-expression and collaboration with peers through imaginative writing, production, and performance-based activities.
  • City Lore, Inc. (New York, NY) ($20,000) to implement a qualitative study exploring the resilience of organizations with arts programming that are excluded from the arts philanthropic support system. The project will address research questions about the resilience of arts and cultural providers such as social clubs, religious institutions, and small businesses during times of crisis, with a focus on the periods before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic.
  • Springfield Museum of Art (Springfield, OH) ($20,000) to support an exhibition and accompanying catalogue featuring the works of women artists. The exhibition will explore the theme of contemporary women artists who focus on issues of identity.
  • International Storytelling Association (Jonesborough, TN) ($25,000) to support Storytelling Live!, a seasonal teller-in-residence program. Artists, including African, Latino, Asian, and Native American storytellers and representing a broad range of storytelling traditions, will be featured in week-long residencies that include concerts, workshops, and special performances serving hospitals, schools, senior centers, and correctional institutions.

Rhode Island Historical Society (Providence, RI) received a $48,000 grant from the Rhode Island State Council on the Arts and the Rhode Island Historical Preservation & Heritage Commission for capital preservation work at the facility.

The Children’s Museum of the Upstate (Greenville, SC) was awarded a $28,500 grant from the Bosch Community Fund to support steamWORKS, the museum’s special think-tank lab.

Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) received three grants totaling $519,999 from Connecticut Humanities. The largest grant of $500,000 is a Connecticut Cultural Fund Operating Support grant, which assists organizations in recovering from the COVID-19 pandemic and improves their ability to serve their communities. The second is a $10,000 grant from the Sustaining Humanities through the American Rescue Plan Capacity Grants to support diversity, equity, accessibility and inclusion training across all departments. The third award of $9,999, is a Capacity Building Grant to fund Lord Cultural Resources’ external information gathering and reporting in order to help the museum better understand and engage with a more diverse public.

National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) has designated Mystic Seaport Museum an Informal Education Community Anchor. The designation recognizes the museum and its Treworgy Planetarium as a community resource and provides a $24,266 grant to bring space exploration to traditionally underserved areas and broaden student participation in the fields of science, technology, engineering, and math.

LEADERSHIP

The Kenosha Public Museums Board of Trustees has named Leslie Brothers the next executive director of the Kenosha Public Museums (Kenosha, WI). Brothers brings extensive experience as an executive director, most recently at the Ulrich Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art at Wichita State University and the McDonough Museum of Art at Youngstown State University. Leslie will begin her new role in March.

Executive Director, Andrew Sandall of the Museum of Arts & Sciences (Daytona Beach, FL) announced he is stepping down from his position to take over as president and CEO of the Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ). Maria Hane will serve as the interim executive director until a search for a new executive director is completed.

Dr. Gabriela Chavarria has been named the new executive director of the Burke Museum (Seattle, WA). Dr. Chavarria currently serves as the vice president and chief curator of the Science Division at the Denver Museum of Nature & Science. Dr. Chavarria’s appointment begins on March 1, 2022 following the retirement of current executive director Julie Stein.

Snug Harbor Cultural Center & Botanical Garden (Staten Island, NY) welcomed Jessica Baker Vodoor as the next President & CEO to lead the 83-acre site and historic cultural institution.  Ms. Vodoor served for eight years in Times Square as the Vice President, Operations for the New 42nd Street where she directed the operations of the New 42 Studios and the Duke on 42nd Street. Ms. Vodoor began her role on January 10.

Year End Kudos!

Congratulations to these Affiliates on their recent accomplishments! Do you have kudos to share? Please send potential entries to Aaron Glavas, GlavasC@si.edu.

FUNDING

The North Carolina Museum of History (Raleigh, NC) received a $2.5 million gift from the David R. Hayworth Foundation to create the Dr. David R. Hayworth Children’s Discovery Gallery. The Gallery will have four primary areas focusing on school-age children, preschoolers, a space for live learning, and the Tar Heel Junior Historian Association exhibition.

The Ralph C. Wilson, Jr. Foundation announced a $100 million commitment to transform the financial strength and long-term viability of Southeast Michigan’s arts and culture communities through the establishment of an endowment that will support the sector now and forever. The Foundation will gift the Arab American National Museum (Dearborn, MI) $100,000 annually and Michigan Science Center (Detroit, MI) $200,000 annually to support general operating needs. Each organization will also co-design, in partnership with Community Foundation and national consultants, metrics and benchmarks that support their goals and strategic plans.

Kimball Electronics Gives, the employee giving circle of Kimball Electronics, announced Conner Prairie (Fishers, IN) has been awarded a $500 grant to support the purpose of Creating Quality for Life for the communities in which the company operates and where its employees live. 

The Durham Museum (Omaha, NE) received a $35,974 American Rescue Plan federal grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services. The museum plans to use the funding to add additional part-time facilitators to its education team. A portion will also be used to expand and enhance both online and on-site educational programming such as the museum’s virtual field trips and award-winning Museum Live! weekly webcast series.

The Iowa Department of Cultural Affairs is distributing $1 million among 118 Iowa arts and cultural groups to encourage people to safely “Re-imagine, Re-engage, Reconnect” with concerts, museums, festivals, and one another. Funds will provide economic relief to organizations challenged by the pandemic. Recipients include:

Union Station, Kansas City, Inc. (Kansas City, MO) received a $5 million gift from the Sunderland Foundation to be used for a wide range of Union Station improvements, including diamond-polishing the granite and marble floors, repairing its ornate ceiling, and completely overhauling its restrooms.

Flushing Town Hall (Flushing, NY) received a $50,000 grant from the Guru Krupa Foundation in support of the cultural institution’s art education programs that cater to the population of Queens and beyond. The grant will fund Flushing Town Hall’s Diwali Festival and help fund artist fees and public programs, along with general operating expenses of Flushing Town Hall. 

Mystic Seaport Museum (Mystic, CT) will receive an American Rescue Plan Act grant award of more than $40,000 to support the rebuilding of the museum’s Sustainable Maritime Trades and Skills Program.

The NBA Foundation awarded a grant to the Museum of the African Diaspora (San Francisco, CA) to help create employment opportunities, further career advancement and drive greater economic empowerment for Black youth.

AWARDS & RECOGNITION

Retired Executive Director Dr. Bob Blackburn of the Oklahoma Historical Society (Oklahoma City, OK) received the Governor’s George Nigh Public Service Award for his contributions during 41 years of public service.

The article ‘Not a Tinker’s Damn’: The Politics of Suffrage in the South Dakota Election of 1918, by Gerard Boychuk from the South Dakota History, the quarterly journal of the South Dakota State Historical Society (Pierre, SD), won the Michael P. Malone Award from the Western History Association. The article was part of a special issue on the centennial of the ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which granted most women equal voting rights.

LEADERSHIP

The Morris Museum (Morristown, NJ) announced it has appointed Andrew Sandall to be the next president & CEO, succeeding Dr. Cleveland Johnson, who will retire at the end of the year. Sandall is currently the Executive Director of the Museum of Arts & Sciences (Daytona Beach, FL).

Coming Up in Affiliateland in September 2019

As we fall into autumn, Affiliates are springing ahead with great programming across the nation.

TEXAS
The Irving Arts Center will open the SITES’ exhibition Billie Holiday at Sugar Hill: Photographs by Jerry Dantzic in Irving, 9.14.

NATIONWIDE
Over 90 Affiliates are taking part in the annual Smithsonian magazine Museum Day, offering free admission on 9.21.

SOUTH CAROLINA
The Children’s Museum of the Upstate will hold a teachers’ night featuring an educator from the Smithsonian Center for Learning and Digital Access, in Greenville, 9.21.

RHODE ISLAND
The Rhode Island Historical Society will feature a lecture about sports history by National Museum of American History’s curator, Eric Jentsch, in Providence, 9.21.

Upcoming lecture in Framingham examines ‘More than “Just Uhura”‘

MASSACHUSETTS
Framingham State University continues its Moon Landing in Context series with a talk on Star Trek, civil rights, and space history by National Air and Space Museum curator Margaret Weitekamp, in Framingham, 9.26.

NEW YORK
National Museum of American History curator Madelyn Shaw will give a talk on the history of postwar American fashion at the Long Island Museum in Stony Brook, 9.26.

FLORIDA 
The Museum of Arts and Sciences continues its annual Septembers with the Smithsonian with concerts by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra, in Daytona, 9.28.

OHIO  
Destination Moon: The Apollo 11 Mission exhibition from SITES opens at the Cincinnati Museum Center, 9.28.

Coming Up in Affiliateland in September 2018

Let’s get back to school and back to collaborating!

NATIONWIDE
Over 100 Affiliates will take part in Smithsonian magazine Museum Day. Many of them will host screenings of original programs from the Smithsonian Channel as part of the day’s programming. Check here for participating Affiliates taking part on 9.22.

FLORIDA
The Museum of Arts and Sciences will host its annual Septembers with the Smithsonian programming. On 9.8, Dr. Valerie Paul from the Smithsonian Marine Station at Ft. Pierce will present two lectures on Smithsonian research in the Indian River lagoon. The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra will present two concerts on Jazz Sites: Regional Style and Evolution in Daytona Beach, 9.28-29.

George Catlin, Buffalo Bull, Grazing on the Prairie, 1832-1833, oil on canvas, Smithsonian American Art Museum, Gift of Mrs. Joseph Harrison, Jr., soon to be on view in Washington.

WASHINGTON
A painting by George Catlin, Buffalo Bull, Grazing on the Prairie on loan from the Smithsonian American Art Museum, will be part of the Endangered Species, Artists on the Front Line of Biodiversity exhibition opening at the Whatcom Museum in Bellingham, 9.8.

TENNESSEE
The International Storytelling Center will screen The True Story of Mary Celeste, the famous “ghost ship” mystery from the Smithsonian Channel, in Jonesborough, 9.17 and 9.22.

NEBRASKA
National Postal Museum Curator Lynn Heidelbaugh will present a lecture at the Durham Museum on Letters of Love, Longing and Loss in World War I, in Omaha, 9.18.

A presenter from the Smithsonian American Art Museum will lead a lively online discussion focusing on the representation of American Indians in artworks by both Native and non-Native artists at the University of Nebraska State Museum of Natural History in Lincoln, 9.26.

VIRGINIA
Alison Cawood, citizen science coordinator at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, will give an overview of the Center’s research and citizen science projects at the Hermitage Museum and Gardens in Norfolk, 9.26.

PENNSYLVANIA
The Senator John Heinz History Center will open the Destination Moon exhibition organized by the National Air and Space Museum and Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service. In addition to the artifacts in the exhibition, the Center will  feature an Apollo Lunar Surface Television Camera from the local Westinghouse Electric Corporation, also on loan from the National Air and Space Museum, in Pittsburgh, 8.29.

Astronaut Buzz Aldrin walks on the surface of the moon near the leg of the lunar module Eagle during the Apollo 11 extravehicular activity (EVA). Photo courtesy of NASA.

Coming up in Affiliateland in September 2017

Great stuff to see as we cruise through Affiliateland in September!

GEORGIA
The Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra will be part of a family festival at the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, 9.8-10.

Ann Caspari, an educator at the National Air and Space Museum, will lead a science educator workshop for teachers at the Georgia Aquarium in Atlanta, 9.14-16.

ALASKA
The Anchorage Museum will open Cruisin’ the Fossil Coastline, an exhibition of the travels and fossil adventures of Alaska artist Ray Troll and paleontologist Dr. Kirk Johnson, director of the National Museum of Natural History, in Anchorage, 9.15.

VERMONT
The Sullivan Museum will host a talk by Dr. Adrienne Kaeppler, anthropologist at the National Museum of Natural History, on the Wilkes expedition and the amazing specimens from it in Northfield, 9.21.

NATIONWIDE
Over 100 Smithsonian Affiliates will open their doors free of charge to ticket holders as part of Smithsonian Magazine Museum Day Live!, 9.23.

FLORIDA
The Museum of Arts and Sciences will host a lecture by Valerie Paul of the Fort Pierce Marine Station on 9.23. The Museum will also present two concerts by the Smithsonian Jazz Masterworks Orchestra in Daytona Beach, 9.30.

October 2016 is BUSY in Affiliateland!

Thanks to all our Affiliates for such great work!

CONNECTICUT
Affiliations program Director Harold Closter will announce the new affiliation with the Connecticut Historical Society in Hartford, 10.5.

IOWA
The Dubuque Museum of Art will hold a videoconference on En Plein Air with the American Art Museum in Dubuque, 10.11.

LOUISIANA
The Smithsonian Associates will be working with three Affiliates – the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research, the St. Louis Science Center and the Museum of Arts and Sciences on GEAR UP, a science education program for 8th graders in Lafayette, 10.11-13.

MISSOURI
National Outreach Manager Aaron Glavas will announce the new affiliation with the St. Louis Science Center, and National Air and Space Museum educator Tim Grove will present a book talk at a Member Open House event in St. Louis, on 10.13.

HAWAII
The Pacific Aviation Museum will host an astrophotography workshop with the Smithsonian Astrophysical Observatory, in Honolulu, 10.13-14.

ARIZONA
The Heard Museum will open the exhibition Kay WalkingStick: An American Artist from the National Museum of the American Indian, in Phoenix, 10.13

GEORGIA
Staff from the National Museum of Natural History will be giving talks at a private event for the Atlanta Regional Host Committee at the David Sencer Centers for Disease Control Museum in Atlanta, 10.13.

NEVADA
The Las Vegas Natural History Museum will open the SITES exhibition Titanaboa in Las Vegas, 10.15.

NORTH CAROLINA
The North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences will host the Board meeting and associated activities of the Smithsonian Science Education Center in Raleigh, 10.17.

WASHINGTON, DC
Over 120 Affiliate staff will help celebrate the 20th anniversary of Smithsonian Affiliations at the annual conference in Washington, 10.17-20.

TENNESSEE
John Franklin from the National African American Museum will announce the new affiliation with the National Civil Rights Museum in Memphis, 10.20.

OHIO
National Outreach Manager Jennifer Brundage will give comments at the Cummings Center for the History of Psychology groundbreaking, dedication and dinner event in Akron, 10.22.

American Art Museum curator Virginia Mecklenburg will present a talk on Seeing America with Norman Rockwell at the Springfield Museum of Art in Springfield, 10.25.

COLORADO
The Denver Museum of Nature and Science and the Smithsonian Science Education Center will collaborate on workshops on Building Awareness for Science Education in Denver, 10.24-25.

DELAWARE
National Museum of American History curator Katherine Ott will attend and offer commentary at the Making of Modern Disability conference at the Hagley Museum and Library in Wilmington, 10.28.