By Mary Alice Murphy

"I began the job on Wednesday, May 18," Carmen Vendelin, new Silver City Museum director, said.

When asked where she was from, she said she originally lived in Boise, Idaho, but attended high school and college in Seattle, WA; graduate school in Chicago; and more graduate school in New Jersey. She got a job in Philadelphia, but she wanted to get back to the West.

She next worked at the New Mexico Museum of Art in Santa Fe.

"I had planned a trip in 2014 to New Mexico, and Silver City was on the itinerary, but I got the job in Santa Fe and just moved to the state," Vendelin said. "I wanted to be in a drier climate again, and I missed the mountains.

"I was lucky to get the job in Santa Fe, and had been interested in Silver City," Vendelin said. "I thought that the one job I would really like would be the Silver City Museum directorship, if it ever came open. It did and I was selected."

As for goals and changes she envisions for the Silver City Museum, she said she wants to revamp the exhibit spaces, especially with wall color and perhaps create separate spaces for the house and the historical aspects of the area.

"I am concerned with looking at the mix of exhibitionsG