Hours: Tuesdays – Saturdays 10:00am until 5:00pm; Sundays 2:00pm till 5:00pm
Fees: The Art Museum is free with donations accepted. The Children’s Museum admission is $3 for everyone over 1 year of age. Call for Group Rates. The Blakemore Planetarium has undergone a major renovation and now has a new permanent Exhibits area and is hosting several Sky Shows weekly in the new Theater Dome. General Admission is $3 for the Exhibits, or $6 for the Sky Show and Exhibits for 13 year olds and older; $4 for 12 and under; one year olds and under free. Call for Sky Show times (432) 683-2882.
Directions: The Museum of the Southwest is located in the Historic Section of old Midland, about 4 blocks west of downtown and one block south of Wall Street, between “K” and “J” Streets.
Mission statement:
The Museum of the Southwest is comprised of an Art Museum, a Children’s Museum, and a Planetarium situated on a 5 acre campus of shaded grounds with a Sculpture Park. The Museum seeks to excite the senses through discovery in arts, culture and science.
Exhibitions:
Linda Vallejo’s A Prayer for the Earth
Saturday, January 28 –Sunday, March 18, 2012
Linda Vallejo’s A Prayer for the Earth will be open for public viewing as of Saturday, January 28. Museum members and press are invited to a meet-the-artist reception in the Here and Now Gallery on Friday, January 27 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. A Prayer for the Earth is a mixed media installation and is the first of five exhibits featured in the Museum of the Southwest Contemporary Series 2012, “Tribal Stories.”
These are visual stories told by and about Native Americans using a variety of contemporary and traditional media. “Each artist energizes their particular story from a cultural point of view reflecting an ancestral past. Linda Vallejo is our first artist because her imagery respects the importance she finds in the collective Native American ceremony,” states Cristi Branum, Adjunct Curator of Art for the Museum of the Southwest.
According to Vallejo, “A Prayer for the Earth embodies the wisdom of indigenous peoples which sees all of existence as animated by a common energy and related together as part of one family.” Vallejo was born in Los Angeles, grew up in Europe, and attended college at the University of Madrid, Whittier College and California State University at Long Beach where she earned her MFA in printmaking. An interest in her family heritage and the cultures of the indigenous peoples in Mexico and the Americas deeply inspired this work. The installation, consisting of paintings and sculptures, is sure to stun the senses and stimulate the mind with its vibrant colors and creative insight.
Contemporary Series 2012, “Tribal Stories” has been made possible by the Arts Council of Midland and the Beal Foundation. The Museum of the Southwest welcomes the community to experience Linda Vallejo’s A Prayer for the Earth and the other exhibitions currently on view.
