Fine Art Museum Launches in Silver City
Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center begins its Capital Campaign this month with a video describing this cultural, educational, and entertaining cultural project. The video notification will be emailed to residents of Grant, Luna, Hidalgo, and Catron Counties who have already expressed an interest in bringing a fine art museum to our part of the state. It may also be seen on the SWRMA website, www.southwest-art-museum.org .
Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center will bring a high level of historic and cultural significance through the means of visual art to southwest New Mexico and especially to Silver City. Its Mission it is to celebrate visual art, foster creativity, educate the public, and encourage community spirit. Plans are to collect, preserve, and exhibit a permanent collection of American fine art, host contemporary loaned exhibitions, hold an annual juried show, as well as have ancillary programs of an art film series, lectures, social activity, and creative classes. The art museum is a cultural asset that will provide inspiration and education through exhibits and programs for all ages. In addition, the Art Museum will become a strong tourist attraction that will increase the local economy.
All museums are important. Silver City was blessed with the vision of Harry Benjamin in beginning the Silver City Museum to preserve and exhibit the history of the Town and its people for visitors to enjoy today. The WNMU Museum is an important teaching museum. Many people take advantage of learning more about Mimbreño Culture through pottery and other exhibits. Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center's focus is on American art from the early years of the United States, the territorial periods of the west and southwest, and art of the present time. The growing collection has hundreds of artworks from 1850-present and depends on gifted art for additions to its Permanent Collection as well as art loaned for exhibition by individuals and through foundations.
Thanks to John Villani writing a book in 2005 called 100 Best Art Towns in America, national attention was focused on Silver City. Appreciation goes to those artists working in Silver City when he visited and wrote about their creativity and entrepreneurial spirit. Artists that moved here since that time have continued to build a solid art community with visual art organizations, studio tours, gallery weekends and events like Clay Festival and Print Fiesta. Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center is ready to make the "Art Town" reputation even stronger with a dedicated museum building, producing outstanding exhibitions and educational programs. Through these, the Museum will provide education and the means for inspiration that produces creativity in all life's activity. The Board is striving to make this art museum a reality now and a permanent cultural Jewel for Southwest New Mexico that will continue to inspire and educate into the future.
In 2014, a number of local artists met and began talking about how they missed going to art museums. They missed the inspiration of seeing the art, learning how past artists has solved problems, and the creative stimulation of viewing fine art. Their conversations broadened to education in general, that many older children and even adults could benefit through looking at and doing art as an educational experience. Studies show that, statistically, sixty-five percent of all people learn better visually and remember better what has been learned visually. Learning to not just look, but to really see can be a learned skill helpful in all life's activities.
New Mexico is noted for great art museums, but the time, distance, and expense needed to reach Santa Fe, Taos, or even Albuquerque, are barriers to the people in the four counties that make up Southwest New Mexico, to be able to benefit from an art museum experience. An art museum, by its immediate location in Silver City would solve that situation for residents of Grant County and its neighboring counties.
The following local artists became Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center's Founders. They were Claude Smith III, Diane Kleiss, Christopher Saxman, Chery Fenley, Victoria Chick, Cecilia McNicholl, Lee Gruber, Jeff and Sherry Haynie, and lawyer David Demars. They began investigating what it would take for a fine art museum to become part of Silver City that could benefit people in nearby counties too. The Founders wrote Bylaws and worked on raising art museum awareness through group meetings and small fundraisers. Current Board members are Claude Smith III, Lucy Whitmarsh, Craig Wentz, Christopher Saxman, and Victoria Chick with Charmeine Wait, Lee Gruber, and Vladimir Gnilozubov as Advisors. The Board was expertly guided in forming a capital campaign plan by Mary Newkirk. The Board will be growing and would like all communities and age levels to be represented once programs begin. The Board views the Museum and Art Center as a future resource for related organizations and schools in the Southwest quadrant of New Mexico.
Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center is a New Mexico non-profit corporation, a 501(c)(3) educational charity, and registered with the New Mexico Attorney General's office for Capital Fund Raising.
Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center, thanks to the gift of a fifty-five-year collection of American Art along with art gifts by other Silver City collectors, already has a Permanent Collection of works by well-known artists ready to be curated into exhibitions. Silver City resident C.N. Flanders gifted his pristine Art Research Library of three thousand volumes to the Museum. Not a lending library, the Art Research Library will be named in his honor, used by staff to prepare educational materials, and open to the public for use within the Museum.
Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center is a member of the American Alliance of Museums. The Board follows their standards and practices with the goal that this Museum will be eligible to borrow art from other art museums to exhibit in Silver City, thereby expanding the opportunity to enrich the world of art for residents of Southwest New Mexico.
But first, a building is needed to protect and exhibit all that Southwest Regional Museum has to offer – three simultaneous curated exhibitions, art film series, lectures, art research library, social events, and the Art Center where art-making for both children and adults will take place. This Capital Fund Raising Launch will begin to raise money to purchase a suitable Silver City building to be transformed into a fine art museum. The building needs to be 7000 or more sq. ft., preferably on one floor in a location where future expansion is possible.
The Capital Campaign needs gifts of $2,000 to $100,000 to be contractually pledged early and paid incrementally over 5 years. Corporations and some individuals will see the tax benefits of gifting this way. Other donors may wish to give smaller amounts through the Southwest Regional Museum of Art and Art Center Pay Pal account or by Check. Information to use these donation channels are on the following website: http://www.southwest-art-museum.org . All monetary gifts and donations of any amount are important, will be acknowledged with thanks and given appropriate tax information. Gifts will be placed in an interest baring, capital insured account, specifically for the Museum building. Recognition for major donors includes naming privileges for specific museum areas. All Donors over $2000 will have names placed on an architect designed "Wall Of Appreciation" in the Museum. More details later when the Museum configuration is known. All donors will be thanked in publications.
To be added to the list to receive Museum and Art Center updates, or to make an appointment to see the business plan, please leave your email address on the website "contact us" form: www.southwest-art-museum.org.
