Live from LRMA

Fall is Fun at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art

2011-09-28T08:54:00.000-07:00

As I sit down to write this article, my head is buzzing with all of the things going on this fall for the education staff at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. We have just finished two pottery classes, one for children and one for adults. Our annual Heritage Arts Festival was on Saturday the 1^st and with gorgeous weather it was better than ever. Heritage Festival is one of our most labor-intensive events of the year, but also one of the most enjoyable because it is filled with fun and excitement, mainly for the children who come, but also for adults.

On Thursday, October 6, the Concentrated Drawing class with teacher Cassie Marcellino will begin in our Carriage House Studio. The class runs for four weeks on Thursday nights from 6:00 to 8:00. This class is great for people who want to learn how to draw but don’t know where to begin. Anyone from junior high to adults are welcome and supplies are included. To sign up for this class, please call the museum at (601) 649-6374.

Later in October, we will have our annual Fourth Grade Tours program. We call this event our "Choctaw Days" because local Choctaw visit the museum to perform their traditional dances and demonstrate basket weaving to local school children. The students who visit are given a tour of our By Native Hands Basket Gallery and experience a truly interactive field trip with hands-on art activities and the Choctaw demonstrations. So far we expect about 500 students on October 18 and October 19.

At the end of October, our Trick Art Treat Halloween art class will wrap up the fun for the month. On November 11, we will have the annual Very Special Arts Festival at the Cameron Center in Laurel. This is one of my favorite days out of the year because Very Special Arts Festival is just for students with special needs, and every year the students who come have a wonderful time. This year’s theme is "Beach Party" and promises to bring the fun of summer into the cold days of November. This event is held in conjunction with the Laurel Junior Auxiliary and the Laurel Arts League.

The Loïs Mailou Jones: A Life in Vibrant Color exhibition is open through November 6. This is a fascinating show that allows the viewer to see the work of an important American artist over the span of her entire life. We also have wonderful family guides that go along with the show as well as a hands-on mask collage that kids can make in the gallery. I hope that you will be able to join us for some of the great things happening at Lauren Rogers.

At the Museum: All About Internships

2011-08-11T13:46:00.000-07:00

Museum Internships

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has partnered with the University of Southern Mississippi to offer unpaid internships to interested students. The Museum offers internships in the areas of education and outreach, marketing and public relations, library and archives and the curatorial department. These internships can be used for class credit with approval from the student’s department chairperson. Sessions mirror the fall, spring and summer class schedules with each internship consisting of 150 hours.

LRMA requires students to complete the Internship Application Form which can be found on the Museum's website www.LRMA.org (click on About and then Staff). The application can be found at the bottom of the page.

We also ask the student to submit a resumé with full contact information for three professional references and a cover letter explaining their reasons for applying. Applications are due 30 days prior to the beginning of the requested semester and a student must have completed at least two full years of college. Other requirements are listed in the application.

While USM has been our main source of college interns, the Museum will gladly accept students from other colleges and universities by following the same application process.

The Museum has been fortunate to have many dedicated and committed students to work through an internship program here at the Museum. Some of the past interns have accepted museum jobs in other locations after gaining experience at LRMA.
While student interns focus on work in one area, we feel it is important for the intern to work a few hours in other departments to get a well-rounded knowledge of the various departments.

This summer we welcomed Hayley Ivy, a Hattiesburg native and a USM art major, to the internship program. She has been invaluable to the curatorial department by assisting with exhibition display, label research and writing, and file organization.
When interviewed, Hayley stated, "my favorite part of the internship is seeing the process of how an exhibition comes together. There were things I have learned during my time at LRMA that I hadn’t considered before – such as taking an idea to the Board for approval, the marketing of an exhibition, the process of installation and making it available to the public along with the educational aspect of training docents for tours."

Hayley shared her reason for applying for the internship was for resumé building and exploring art as a career. "I'm unsure of what part of the art field I would like to pursue. I would be happy to apply for an internship at other museums to have a broader range of information," says Hayley.

Museum internships exist formally at most medium to large museums and informally at small institutions. Many small museums have only 1-5 staff members and welcome dependable help in the form of volunteers.

We have accepted assistance from students who can't devote their time to the academic schedule of a formal internship but would simply like to volunteer their time to learn more about the profession. Formal internships mean that the student can work on more sustained and long-term projects. Our limited staff prevents us from accepting multiple interns in one department at the same time, so if you're interested, please apply early.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open to the public Tuesdays - Saturdays from 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. and on Sundays 1-4 p.m. For additional information, check the website at www.LRMA.org or call 601-649-6374.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Guest Blogger: George Bassi

2011-07-22T12:16:00.000-07:00

“Are you busy at the Museum in the summer?” That is a question we are asked a lot this time of year at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Summer has become our busiest season, thanks to a terrific education program under the direction of Curator of Education Mandy Buchanan and Education Outreach Coordinator Angie King. From art classes in our two studios to off-site programs around our six-county area, the summer is full of hands-on activities for children and adults.

Two weeks of Art Camp were just completed, and it is fun to see children leaving the Museum with paintings, collages and t-shirts that they created. The educational role of museums is at the core of museum service to the public and is the founding principal of this institution.

Through our free admission and our strong programming, we work constantly to serve the public by preserving our cultural, artistic and historical heritage. That is our role in Laurel and Jones County, and that is the role of more than 17,500 museums across this country. Together, museums preserve and protect more than a billion objects in their collections, and Americans trust us to interpret them. According to a study by Indiana University, museums are considered a more reliable source of historical information than books or teachers.

This summer has also been one of our busiest in terms of visitors to our exhibitions. Two popular exhibits of local interest, Focus on Fashion and Laurel Collects: Vintage Toys, have attracted multi-generations of families into our doors. Our popularity mirrors that of other museums across the country. Americans from all income and education ranges visit museums, and the latest statistics indicate that two-thirds of American adults visit a museum each year. There are nearly 850 million visits per year to U. S. museums– more than the attendance for all professional sporting events and theme parks combined.

Once school begins in a few weeks, museums in our country will spend more than $2.2 billion during the year on education, with the majority spent on K-12 student programming. Museums annually receive more than 90 million visits each year from students in school groups. Here at LRMA, we follow suit by committing two of our ten full-time staff members to education and attracting thousands of school children each year from a primarily rural audience. Thanks to Museum members who support our “Adopt-A-Bus” fund, we can reach schools that might not otherwise be able to afford a bus trip.

Museums are also economic development engines, with U.S. museums contributing $21 billion to the American economy each year. Communities recognize that the arts, humanities and museums are critical to the quality of life and livability of American cities and towns.

Based on our busy summer here at the Museum, I think we are definitely adding to the livability of Laurel and Jones County.

George Bassi, Executive Director

Guest Blogger: Allyn Boone

2011-07-22T12:15:00.000-07:00

Since opening in 1923, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has reached out to our community with an outstanding permanent collection, exciting temporary exhibitions, and innovative education programs. Today, LRMA is recognized across the United States as one of the best mid-sized art museums in the country.

LRMA members make this possible. Annual membership contributions allow LRMA to care for and expand the permanent collection, bring nationally significant temporary exhibitions to our area, and create education programs that introduce thousands of children and adults to the visual arts.

Members receive benefits ranging from personal invitations to exhibitions to discounts on Museum Show purchases to complimentary tickets to the LRMA Gala. Additionally, LRMA members have the benefit of knowing that they are making a difference in our community by supporting the Museum’s educational mission through their annual membership donations.

Throughout its history, LRMA has never charged an admission fee. The Museum’s founders felt that LRMA should be a gift to the community, and we do, too. More than 90 percent of LRMA programs and activities are open to the public free of charge, thanks to the generosity of LRMA members and supporters.

Many LRMA members choose to make an additional contribution to provide transportation stipends for schools that bring students to the Museum for tours and activities. The LRMA Adopt-a-Bus fund allows the Museum to reimburse schools for transportation expenses, ensuring that more children are able to visit LRMA.

Membership is the cornerstone of LRMA support. The generosity of Museum members allows LRMA to achieve the level of excellence for which we are known throughout the nation – from caring for our collections to presenting masterworks by lehttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gifgendary artists to creating learning opportunities for children and families. We consider our members to be our partners, and we invite you to join with us for an exciting year of high-quality collections, exhibitions, and education programs.

For information about joining LRMA, call the Museum office at 601-649-6374 or visit our website at www.LRMA.org. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Allyn Boone is Director of Development at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Vintage galore this summer...

2011-06-28T13:15:00.000-07:00

We have vintage toys on display, vintage fashion photographs, and today I've just put up a small show of vintage travel posters. Although the travel and war posters in our vaults are not part of the official art collection, they've been part of the museum's history since the very beginning. Ella Bradley, the museum's first director and librarian, collected advertising and war posters and, according to legend, stored them under an Oriental rug in her office. In the late 1990s, Museum staff called on experts in vintage posters to help us decide which to keep, frame, and exhibit. That project resulted in the retention of 60+ high-quality vintage posters. We occasionally exhibit them here, and sometimes send them out on loan to other organizations.

Since we had some room left over in the Lower Level Galleries after installing the Vintage Toys and Games show, I went ahead and selected twenty travel posters to hang in the Lecture Hall. Of those, four are posters for travel to the Mississippi Gulf Coast via Illinois Central Railroad. These have never been exhibited at the Museum, having been unframed until a year or so ago. Two feature golfers, and two feature horseback riders. The styles of the posters range from illustration-style to Art Deco to somewhat Cubist, and locations from Biloxi to Germany.

Two shows opened this week

2011-06-22T12:11:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present two summer exhibitions for 2011 - Curator’s Choice: Focus on Fashion and Laurel Collects XI: Vintage Toys and Games. Both exhibitions will be on display from June 21 - August 14, 2011.

The public is invited to attend the opening for the exhibitions on Sunday, June 26. David Longest, guest curator for Laurel Collects XI, will give a Gallery Talk at 2 p.m. and LRMA Curator Jill Chancey, PhD will speak on photography. A reception will follow.

Curator’s Choice: Focus on Fashion features a selection of fashion photographs ranging from the 1940s to early 1960s. Laurel native Charlotte Payne worked in New York, Japan, and Europe during that time period, and her personal and professional photo collection is currently in local hands. Those who have been watching the TV show Mad Men, or who remember the styles of the ‘50s and ‘60s, will find a lot of familiar material in this exhibition. This nearly twenty-year survey will show how quickly fashion and images of fashion changed during the post-war years and how clothing and styling changed again around 1960.

Charlotte Payne was crowned “Miss Laurel” in the late 1930s. After a brief marriage and a stint working for the war effort in Jackson in the early 1940s, she moved to New York and signed with the prestigious John Robert Powers Agency. She began as a juniors model. Her baby face and “girl-next-door” look kept her in juniors for nearly ten years before she “graduated” to more sophisticated work. She appeared in hundreds of ads and on the covers of such magazines as Life, Vogue, Harper’s Bazaar, Junior Bazaar, and many others.

The exhibition will feature approximately 60 photos, tear-sheets, proofs, and contact sheets that show the development of both the fashions in the photos, and the style of fashion photography. The show will also illustrate the career arc of a successful fashion model during the pre-supermodel years, from juniors catalogue work to the cover of Vogue, when models were meant to be anonymous chameleons, not celebrities.

Curator’s Choice is generously sponsored by Gilchrist, Sumrall, Yoder & Boone, LLC.

Laurel Collects XI, organized by LRMA and the Laurel Arts League, will feature vintage toys and games from Laurel and Jones County collections. Previous “Laurel Collects” exhibitions have been devoted to furniture, portraiture, Asian art, and the work of Laurel native Billy Ford. Toys in the show include rare early Raggedy Ann and Raggedy Andy dolls – and even rarer, their nanny, Beloved Belindy; three different kinds of train sets; Barbie and GI Joe dolls and many more. Visitors will find familiar faces and traces of childhood memories in this exhibition.

David Longest, a lifelong collector of toys, has written nine books on antiques including Collecting Disneyana, Toys, Antique and Collectible, Character Toys and Collectibles, and Santa Claus Collectibles. He was a feature writer and contributing editor of the national Toy Shop news magazine as well as a feature writer for Collector’s Showcase magazine. Longest has been a guest lecturer on the subject of antiques for various regional organizations and is also a published playwright. He is an award-winning high school theatre director whose drama program has been featured on Showtime and The Movie Channel cable networks and in the arts section of The New York Times. Longest has won numerous national teaching awards including the D.A.R.’s National American History Medal and the U.S. Dept. of Education’s Presidential Scholar Teacher Recognition Award.

LRMA Director George Bassi said “Laurel Collects is a terrific tradition in our community, and we are pleased to present this latest installment with the continued cooperation and assistance of the Laurel Arts League. Over the decades, thishttp://www.blogger.com/img/blank.gif unique exhibition series has staged a variety of collectible shows, and vintage toys will surely please visitors of all ages.”

Laurel Collects XI is generously sponsored by Laurel Arts League and Laurel Bone & Joint Clinic.

Visit us on Facebook to see installation views of each of these exhibitions.

Guest Blogger: Angie King

2011-06-21T07:03:00.000-07:00

Summer Art is Hot at LRMA!

The summer is in full swing at Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. This Wednesday will be the last Free Family Art day for the summer, so don=t miss it! Swing by our Museum Annex between 1 and 4 p.m. on June 29 to create a fun, Fourth of July-themed project.

For more free art activities from the LRMA education staff, check out some of your local libraries. LRMA staff will offer an art activity on Monday, June 27 from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. at the Mize Public Library and an activity from 2 to 3 p.m. on Thursday, June 30 at the Petal Public Library. These collage activities are based on the summer reading theme, AOne World, Many Stories.@

Local art teacher Cassie Marcellino is offering a concentrated drawing class for ages junior high to adult every Thursday in July from 10 a.m. until noon beginning July 7. There are still a few spots open in this class, so call now to make your reservation! Also being offered in July is "Aqueous Painting" with LRMA Registrar Tommie Rodgers. This class will teach participants about alternative techniques for printing and painting with water-based media. This is a one-day workshop on Wednesday, July 13 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. and includes lunch. This class is open for junior high students to adults. Both weeks of the annual LRMA Summer Art Camp are booked this July but there is a waiting list for those who are still interested. In August, the education staff is offering an all new class called "Girls' Night Art." This class is designed for adult participants of all skill levels to come and make a fun and creative still-life painting to take home that night. This class will be held on Thursday, August 25 from 6 - 9 p.m. in the Carriage House Studio. Make your plans now and call to sign up. Paint supplies will be provided. To find out more about dates or class information, please call the Museum at (601) 649-6374.

The Guild of Docents and Volunteers turned forty this year...

2011-06-13T14:19:00.001-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Guild of Docents and Volunteers held its annual Awards Luncheon Tuesday, May 17 at the Museum. This year marks the 40th Anniversary of the LRMA Guild which began with its first class of docents in 1971.

Those present from the 1971 class of LRMA docents pictured from left to right are:
Mary Anne Sumrall, Read Diket, Stephanie Robinson, Bobbie Lou Green, Bonnie Jones, Jean Ellis Davis, Peggy Schneider, and Margie Hauenstein.

Past Presidents of the LRMA Guild were honored. Pictured from left to right are:
Read Diket (1974-75), Louise Welborn (2009-10), Mary Anne Sumrall (2006-07), Pat Chesser (1980-81), Beth Thompson (1997-98), Donna Applewhite (1999-2000), Dell Scoper (1991-92), Barbara Sauls (2002-03), Joan Brumfield (1998-99), Bobbie Lou Green (1978-79), Gay Morgan (2001-02), Margaret Ann Fortenberry (2005-06), Catherine Nowicki (2008-09), Peggy Schneider (1975-76), Bunny Windham (1989-90), Jean Ellis Davis (1976-77), Dianne Dudley (1986-87), Lizabeth Brumley (2004-05), and Rosemary Norton (2010-11).

Dive into Summer fun at LRMA

2011-05-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Education Department has a busy summer art program with a variety of classes for all ages.

Free Family Art will be offered Wednesdays in June from 1 until 4 p.m. in the Museum Annex. These classes will feature a variety of free art experiences for children and families. No reservations are required for these “make-and-take” summer classes.

LRMA will also offer free art activities at the Townley Center as part of the Laurel Housing Authority’s Summer Programs. These classes will be offered from 11 a.m. until 1 p.m. on Mondays during June and July.

Art Camp will be offered twice this summer. Students may sign up for the July 12- 15th session or the July 19 - 22nd session. The theme for this year's Art Camp is “Celebrating Mississippi Artists.” Projects will include art work based on the works of several Mississippi artists in the LRMA collection. Students will make pottery, paint, and explore printmaking techniques. Be sure to sign up early before the classes are full!

In the Carriage House Studio, we will offer Children’s Pottery Camp Tuesdays and Thursdays, June 7, 9, 14 and 16. Grades K5-6 will meet from 10 a.m. - noon or 2 – 4 p.m.

Participants will create functional and sculptural pottery using hand-building and wheel- throwing techniques. This class always fills up quickly so we encourage anyone interested to sign up at their earliest convenience.

We are also offering two new studio classes for middle school students to adults in the Carriage House Studio.

Tommie Rodgers will lead an Aqueous Painting workshop Wednesday, July 13 from 10 a.m. until 2 p.m. This experimental process of painting is about moving paint with water. Painters of all levels are encouraged to participate in this class. Materials and lunch are provided and registration is required.

Cassie Marcellino will lead a Concentrated Drawing Class for the beginning to intermediate art student. This class will be offered Thursday mornings in July from 10 a.m. until noon. Students will be introduced to basic drawing techniques using different drawing media. Supplies are included and registration is required.

Because girls just want to have fun, we are offering “Girls Night Art” Thursday, August 25, from 6 until 9 p.m. This class promises a good time; so, ladies, get your girlfriends together and sign up! All materials are provided to create your own canvas masterpiece!

To register for any of these summer programs, please contact Liz Brumley at 601. 649. 6374 or info@LRMA.org. We have art programs for everyone in the family. Also, a tour of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is a great way to beat the heat on a summer afternoon! For more information, contact Mandy Buchanan or Angie King at 601.649.6374.

Mandy Buchanan is Curator of Education at Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

2011-05-19T07:35:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its 18th Annual “Blues Bash” Friday, June 3 from 6:30 - 10:30 p.m. on the Museum’s front lawn. This year’s event will feature The House Rockers, a well-known blues party band from Jackson, Mississippi.

The House Rockers, a 9-piece blues band, received recognition for their contributions to blues music when the State of Mississippi erected a Mississippi Blues Trail historical marker at the legendary Subway Lounge in Jackson where they played. For 15 years, the House Rockers was the lounge’s mainstay band and were fronted by singers Levon Lindsey, Abdul Rasheed, and the King Edward (Antoine) Blues Band. Featured in the Robert Mugge documentary Last of the Mississippi Jukes, the House Rockers’ brand of blues carries infectious grooves, screaming guitars and scorching horns.

Blues Bash tickets are $25 each and include a barbecue dinner from The Smokehouse of Laurel. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum or by contacting 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, June 1. Guests should bring a lawn chair or blanket. In case of rain, Blues Bash will be held at The Reserve.

Blues Bash is sponsored by Southern Beverage Company, BancorpSouth, Chancellor Supply, Eagle Transportation, Ellis and Walters Dental Care, Gholson Burson Entrekin & Orr, PLLC, Kim’s Chrysler Toyota, The Koerber Company, Roy Rogers Body Shop, Coca-Cola of Laurel, Laurel Leader-Call, Rock 104, and WDAM-TV. Proceeds from Blues Bash support the Museum’s education program.

Guest Blogger: Holly Green

2011-05-09T13:28:00.000-07:00

AT THE MUSEUM –

Just get ready – it’s going to be great! Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has an action-packed summer planned with activities and events to entertain and enlighten the entire family.

I’ll begin with our upcoming summer exhibitions which are interesting, and a bit whimsical. The 11th installment of Laurel Collects will open on June 21. The theme of this exhibition is Vintage Toys and Games. Laurel Arts League has again partnered with us to put together a show built around collections found in Laurel and Jones County, having had earlier exhibits composed of Asian art, furniture, and portraiture. This exhibition is sure to be appealing and nostalgic.

Word was put out via local media asking residents of Laurel and Jones County to dig through their attics for vintage toys, games, and dolls and bring them in for us to see. There were only two prerequisites - the items had to be manufactured prior to 1970 and they must be in good condition. Last weekend, we brought in an expert who selected the toys that would actually be in the exhibition. The Museum staff and guild members were even allowed to submit toys. Personally, I was a little rough with my childhood toys and they were not in exactly the most acceptable condition. If only I hadn’t colored in Miss Beasley’s polka dots and pierced her ears with my stapler – perhaps my favorite doll might be making her debut at LRMA.

A second summer exhibition, also opening on June 21, is our curator’s choice. Focus on Fashion will feature a selection of fashion photos ranging from the 1940s to the early 1960s. Laurel native Charlotte Payne worked as a model in New York, Japan, and Europe during that time period, and her personal and professional photo collection is currently in local hands. Our exhibition will feature approximately 60 photos, tear-sheets, proofs, and contact sheets from that collection. If you have an interest in fashion or photography or both, this is going to be a lovely and unique exhibition that shouldn’t be missed.

Probably our most laid-back event of the year, Blues Bash will be held Friday, June 3. Those of you who have been coming to this event for the past 18 years know how much fun it is to spend a summer evening on these beautiful grounds. If you’ve never been or it has been a while, you really need to make plans to be here. We always have good music, but the band this year is going to be outstanding. The Houserockers were the mainstay band at the infamous Subway Lounge in Jackson, now on the Mississippi Historic Blues Trail. This band has a faithful following and their slogan is “Ain’t no party like a Houserocker party, ‘cause a houserocker party don’t stop!” Smokehouse of Laurel will be cooking up some delicious barbecue to make the night complete. Go ahead and call now to get your tickets. And don’t forget your lawn chairs.

We also have a slate of art activities to entertain and educate the kids this summer. In June, we will offer Children’s Pottery Camp and Free Family Art. July will bring Summer Art Camp, a painting workshop by our own Tommie Rodgers (LRMA registrar), and a drawing class led by Cassie Marcellino. Then in August, I anticipate record participation for a new event we’re calling “Girls Night Art.” You can learn about these classes on the Museum’s website, www.LRMA.org ,or call 601.649.6374 for further details. Be sure and sign up early as the summer classes are always popular and space is always limited.

Check us out on the web, become our Facebook fan, or follow us on Twitter. However you choose to keep up, be sure and make Lauren Rogers Museum of Art your hub for summer fun and entertainment!

Holly Green is Director of Marketing at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Sarah Scott spoke at LRMA this afternoon

2011-04-21T13:00:00.001-07:00

Look! We have proof! Scott, a member of Studio Art Quilts Associates, spoke about the art of quilting in conjunction with our exhibition, 12 Voices, which was organized by SAQA.

As a side note, some of you may have noticed that there are only *eleven* artists in the 12 Voices exhibition. It's true, art majors can't count.

Kidding! No, actually, one of the artists pulled out as the show was about to go on the road, which was a decision between SAQA and the artist, not a decision made by LRMA. We're sorry if you come to see the show and are disappointed that you only get to see the eleven artists - but the eleven we have ARE fantastic. Come see for yourself.

April Art Talk: Sarah Scott

2011-04-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present ArtTalk on Thursday, April 21 at noon in the Museum’s Stairwell Gallery. Gulf Coast quilt artist Sarah Scott will be the featured speaker.

Sarah Scott of Pass Christian, Mississippi, has worked with fiber and fabric since she was three years old when she first crocheted. She made her own prom dresses and eventually wedding gowns for her daughters. In 1999, she retired from her job at the Naval Research Laboratory and took up quilting as an art. She studied with many well-known quilters at the John C. Campbell Folk School in Brasstown, North Carolina. Scott says “my art quilts seem to take on lives of their own sometime after fabric selection and before binding.” Scott is a member of Studio Art Quilt Associates.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided.

Did I mention there's a silent auction during A Taste of Art & Wine?

2011-03-29T13:12:00.000-07:00

Linwood McClain, President of Trustmark Bank, and Rhonda Proli hold items that will be in the Silent Auction at A Taste of Art and Wine, the annual fund-raiser for the Rogers-Green House to be held Friday, April 15 from 7 - 10 p.m. Sponsors for the event are Trustmark Bank, Mr. and Mrs. Gary Sauls, and Dr. and Mrs. Joe Proli, as well as the LRMA Guild of Docents and Volunteers. This year’s event will feature dinner, wine and spirits, and a silent auction which will include artwork by Mississippi artists, as well as wines and wine accessories. Music will be provided by James Ducker of Laurel and Walt Lucas of Jackson. Tickets are $45 per person with proceeds from the event going toward the renovation and preservation of the house and grounds. To purchase tickets contact Liz Brumley at the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, April 13.

"12 Voices" exhibition open now!

2011-03-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present the exhibition Twelve Voices on display in the Lower Level Galleries through June 5, 2011. An opening reception will be held Sunday, March 27 following a concert in the LRMA American Gallery beginning at 2 p.m.

This exhibition of art quilts, organized by Studio Art Quilt Associates, Inc., presents 26 works by 12 outstanding artists who use quilting as their means of artistic expression. Juror Penny McMorris, in her selections, offers the viewer a magnificent array of works by artists who present a diverse range of imagery in their quilts. McMorris notes that the exhibition offers a “rare, in-depth look at twelve of the finest quilt artists working today. Some are known worldwide. Others are fresh faces displaying a strong and promising talent.”

SAQA is a non-profit organization with more than 2,000 members in 29 countries. Its mission is to promote the art quilt through education, exhibitions, professional development, and documentation. Its artist members are leaders in the field, known for innovation and pushing the boundaries of the medium.

The exhibition is generously sponsored by Jefferson Medical and Robison Tire Co, Inc.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is a private, non-profit organization operating for the benefit of the public. The Museum is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel. The galleries are open from 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and I - 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information call 601-649-6374 or visit www.LRMA.org.

IMAGE:

Kathy Weaver, Cyborg Female 6: Cunning Reversal, 2004

"Twelve Voices in Song" this Sunday, March 27

2011-03-25T14:04:00.001-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present “Twelve Voices in Song,” a Sunday Concert on Sunday, March 27 at 2 p.m. in the LRMA American Gallery. The concert is being held in conjunction with the opening of the LRMA exhibition Twelve Voices. An opening reception for the exhibition will immediately follow the concert.

The concert program will include songs by Donizetti, Gershwin, Gounod, Puccini, and Verdi. The vocalists are students of Dr. Maryann Kyle at The University of Southern Mississippi.

Cierra Hodo is a freshman from West Point, MS, majoring in vocal performance. At West Point High School, Hodo played the roles of Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz and Laurey in Oklahoma!. She graduated from the Mississippi School of the Arts.

Sarah Childers is a junior Vocal Performance major from Fulton, MS. She recently sang the role of the Rose in Rachel Portman’s The Little Prince. She has performed in the musical Company (Jenny), Puccini’s Gianni Schicchi (Ciesca), Leoncavallo’s I Pagliacci (chorus), Puccini’s La Bohème (chorus), and in Ragtime (chorus).

John White has performed throughout the United States and internationally as a soloist. Notable operatic roles include Schaunard in Puccini’s La Bohème, Germont in Verdi’s La Traviata, The Count in highlights from Mozart’s Le Nozze di Figaro, and Blackbeard Teach in Moore’s Devil and Daniel Webster. As a concert soloist, White has sung numerous works including Handel’s Messiah, Mozart’s Requiem, Vivaldi’s Gloria, and Mendelssohn’s Elijah. White works frequently as a worship leader, Christian recording artist, and keyboardist.

Angeley Marullo-Butler is a sophomore Vocal Performance and Business Management major. She has performed in the Jackson area since 2005.

Hilary Bounds is a freshman Vocal Performance major. She recently appeared in The Little Prince as The Fox.

Grace Claire Cordes is a freshman Vocal Performance major. She recently appeared as the Rose in The Little Prince.

Danielle Adams, from Fulton, MS, is a junior Vocal Performance major. She recently appeared as The Fox in The Little Prince and the Grandmother in Little Red Riding Hood.

Sara Linger is a junior Vocal Performance major from Ocean Springs, MS. Linger was recently seen in The Little Prince, playing the title character, and La Bohème as the understudy for Musetta.

Mattie Obregon is a senior Vocal Performance major from Marion, Virginia. She has performed the roles of Mimi in Puccini's La Bohème, Donna Anna from Mozart's Don Giovanni, Nella from Puccini's Gianni Schicchi, and the title role in Puccini's Suor Angelica.

Tara Melvin is a New Orleans native with a Bachelor of Arts degree from the University of New Orleans and a Master of Music degree from Southeastern Louisiana University. Melvin is currently a doctoral student at U. S. M. She has appeared in such roles as Nella in Gianni Schicchi, Sally/Ida in Die Fledermaus and Marcellina in Le Nozze di Figaro.

Also from New Orleans, Tyrone Hayes is a second year doctoral student . He recently sung the roles of Marcello in La Bohème and Tonio in I Pagliacci. Hayes received his Masters degree in Voice Performance from Southeastern Louisiana University and Bachelor's degree in Music from the University of New Orleans.

Originally from Meridian, MS, Lori Joyner is a doctoral student at U.S.M. She has a Bachelor of Music degree in Vocal Performance and a Master of Music in Choral Conducting from the University of Mississippi. While at Ole Miss, Lori performed the roles of Rosalinda in Die Fledermaus, Josephine in H.M.S. Pinafore, and Mrs. Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor.

This Sunday Concert is presented by the Hattiesburg Civic Chorus and Concert Association and sponsored by Tim Lawrence of of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC of Jackson. The concert is free and open to the public.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel. For more information, call 601.649.6374 or visit the Museum’s website at www.LRMA.org.

Laurel Collects XI: Vintage Toys

2011-03-25T11:39:00.000-07:00

Laurel Collects XI: Vintage Toys and Games

The 11th “Laurel Collects” exhibition, organized by the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the Laurel Arts League, will feature vintage toys and games from Laurel and Jones County collections. Previous “Laurel Collects” exhibitions have been devoted to furniture, portraiture, Asian art, and the work of Laurel native Billy Ford. The exhibition will take place in the Museum’s Lower Level Galleries from June 21 - August 14, 2011.

David Longest, an expert and author on vintage toys who teaches theater in New Albany, Indiana, will visit Laurel to select works for the show on April 30.

LRMA welcomes exhibition entries from any resident of Laurel or Jones County. The Museum will be looking for toys, games, and dolls made before 1970 that are in good condition, but will accept no more than five entries per person. Anyone interested in loaning to the exhibition is asked to bring their items to the Museum between 10 am and 4 pm on April 27-29. Please contact LRMA with a photo if objects are too large to be carried by one person. For a larger object, it may be possible to make other arrangements for the curator to view it.

For more information about “Laurel Collects XI”, contact Museum curator Jill Chancey at jchancey@LRMA.org or 601-649-6374.

A Taste of Art & Wine, 2011

2011-03-23T07:57:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will host its annual event A Taste of Art & Wine to benefit the Rogers-Green House on Friday, April 15 from 7 - 10 p.m. at the Rogers-Green House.

This year’s event will feature dinner, wine and spirits, and a silent auction which will include artwork by Mississippi artists, as well as wines and wine accessories. Music will be provided by James Ducker of Laurel and Walt Lucas of Jackson. Tickets are $45 per person with proceeds from the event going toward the renovation and preservation of the house and grounds.

Built in 1903 by Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Rogers, the Rogers-Green House was the childhood home of Lauren Eastman Rogers and was donated to the Eastman Memorial Foundation by Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner Green, Sr. The house was occupied by the Museum in 2003, and is utilized for museum offices and activities and as a rental facility for private events and social gatherings.

A Taste of Art & Wine is chaired by LRMA Guild member Janet Blouin. The event is generously supported by Silver Sponsors Trustmark Bank and Mr. and Mrs. Gary Sauls, and Bronze Sponsors Dr. And Mrs. Joe Proli. The event is also sponsored by the LRMA Guild of Docents and Volunteers.

To purchase tickets contact Liz Brumley at the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, April 13.

Image: A Taste of Art and Wine fund-raising committee pictured left to right are:
Janet Blouin, Chair, Barbara McAlpin, Decorations, Pat Holifield, Decorations, Barbara Sauls, Fund-raising, Sherry Shows, Food, Sydney Swartzfager, Fund-raising, Mary Anne Sumrall, Fund-raising, Cynthia Sheppard, Decorations, Rosemary Norton, LRMA Guild President. Not pictured Patti Slocki, Food Chair.

March Art Talk: Adam Trest

2011-03-08T12:42:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present ArtTalk on Thursday, March 17 at noon in the Museum’s Lower Level Lecture Hall. Laurel artist Adam Trest will be the featured speaker.

A native of Laurel, Mississippi, Adam Trest is a graduate of Mississippi State University, where he received a bachelor of fine arts with an emphasis in painting. His work primarily being portraiture, Trest also addresses the idea of narrative happening within his work. Currently teaching art at St. John's Day School, as well as privately at Oak Street Place, he is an active member on the Board of Directors at the Laurel Little Theatre as Set Designer. Trest recently designed and built the sets for both LLT's To Kill a Mockingbird, and JCJC's production of Little Shop of Horrors. He also manages the Oak Street Place Gallery, and is currently illustrating a children's book written by Kathy Ellzey.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided.

At the Museum: Spring Art Classes

2011-03-02T09:04:00.000-08:00

“Spring into Art Classes at the Museum”

March is going to be a busy month at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Our children's pottery class has just wrapped up, and the adult pottery class is getting into full swing. This class is full, but don't worry because we will offer another one very soon!

The education department has several exciting activities planned for children to keep them busy over Spring Break. On Tuesday, March 15, LRMA will host its fourth annual Spring Break Festival on the front lawn of the Museum from 1 to 3 p.m. Children of all ages are invited to enjoy an afternoon of free arts and crafts activities and face painting. A representative from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science will be here with live animals for children to pet. Music will be provided by Jessie Howell of the Cowboy Blues Band. We hope to see you there!

For children who are having a "staycation" this Spring Break, sign them up for our Spring Break Art Break. This three day art camp is on Wednesday, March 16 through Friday, March 18 from 10 a.m. to Noon in our Museum Annex. Children in grades 5K through 6th may attend. We will create different art projects every day in a variety of media, from pottery to painting. There are only a few slots available so please call now to reserve a space for your child at (601) 649-6374.

To wrap up the month of March, we will have our Home School Friday class on Friday, March 25 from 1 to 4 p.m. in the Museum Annex. All home-schooled children are invited to attend, and no reservation is necessary.

Check the Museum’s website at www.LRMA.org for updates on classes and activities. Even if you can't make it to one of our great Spring Break activities, come by and visit the Museum to see the new art quilt exhibition, 12 Voices, which will be up through June 9.

Angie King is Education Outreach Coordinator at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Mississippi Symphony Orchestra - concert in Laurel this Friday

2011-02-16T09:39:00.001-08:00

MSO in Laurel and Vicksburg

From ROSSINI to RINGO - a program of light classics and pops music will serve as the fare for MSO concerts in Vicksburg and Laurel in February. Additionally, MSO ensembles have visited schools in Laurel, and full orchestra will present 2 school concerts in Vicksburg. If you missed Concertmaster Marta Szlubowska perform the 5th Mozart Concerto at Mozart by Candlelight (or if you would like to hear her again), here is your chance! The program includes Rossini's famous William Tell Overture and music of the Beatles, Carpenters, Rolling Stones and more.

LAUREL
Thursday, February 17, 7:00 PM
First Baptist Church
607 W Fifth, Laurel
Free and open to the public

It's the little things...

2011-02-16T08:07:00.001-08:00

This morning we took down the Robert Henri in order to take it to the conservator on Friday. The Henri is going to go out on tour in April, so our go-to conservator is going to make sure it's fresh, stable, and possibly re-line it, so it looks great while it's on the road. In the meantime, I had to pick another painting to put in its place in the American Gallery. Tommie and I thought the John Sloan would be a good choice, but we had to check and see if it would fit, or we would have to be prepared to take down the whole section of wall and re-calibrate the hanging. Materials and tools for hanging one picture are different than bringing up a cart and tools for re-hanging 8 paintings.

Luckily, last year, we finished a project to fully catalogue our entire collection on a digital database, thanks in part to an NEA grant. And because our cataloguer measured the painting *and* its frame, it took me all of two minutes to open up PastPerfect, check the width of the frame, pop out to the gallery with a tape measure, and decide that there was, in fact, room for the Sloan without it turning into a major endeavor. Ya. Hoo.

Before this, I would've had to go to the Registrar's office to use the card file, find the location of the Sloan, go to the vault, measure the frame, and then go to the gallery to check the space. I know this seems like a minor blip in a curator's day, but I thought: this just saved me a bunch of time. Every time I use the database instead of sauntering down to the accession card file, time is saved. It's really quite nice.

February Art Talk: Clint Martin

2011-02-03T08:53:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present ArtTalk on Thursday, February 17 at noon in the Museum’s Lower Level Lecture Hall. Artist Clint Martin will be the featured speaker.

Born in McComb, Mississippi, Martin is an aviation artist and model builder. He has been associated with the Tuskegee Airmen since 1972 and this association has played a profound role in his art work. His work has been exhibited at Camp Shelby Military History Museum, Mississippi Museum of Art, The National World War II Museum, and the Pentagon. His models are on display at the Camp Shelby Museum. Martin is a retired dentist and resides in Hattiesburg, Mississippi.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

Guest Blogger: Mandy Buchanan

2011-02-01T11:31:00.000-08:00

At the Museum: Free Art activities for Classroom Teachers and Families

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art education department has some great new programs for 2011! We have just introduced a new Folk Art trunk into our selection of art trunks. Art trunks are free art activity kits for classroom teachers. The kit contains instructions and materials for an art activity that is based on the Museum's collection or current exhibit. The new Folk Art trunk contains information and materials for students to create their own art inspired by the art of Mrs. L.V. Hull of Kosciusko, MS. Mrs. Hull's art is featured in the current exhibition Take Time to Appreciate: Photographs of Mrs. L.V. Hull and Reverend H.D. Dennis by Bruce West.

We now have five trunks available for teachers – a Native American basketmaking trunk, a printmaking trunk, an African American Heritage trunk, a Mississippi artists trunk, and the new Folk Art trunk. The LRMA art trunks are a great way to infuse art into the classroom!

Another exciting educational activity is coming up during spring break at LRMA. We are busy planning our annual Spring Break Festival. This fun event will be held on Tuesday, March 15, from 1- 3 p.m. on the LRMA front lawn. This free family- friendly festival will include spring time art activities, music and live animals. This day will be a great opportunity to visit the Museum, create art, and get up close to some Mississippi wildlife.

For more information, please contact Mandy Buchanan or Angie King at 601.649.6374.

Mandy Buchanan is Curator of Education at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Spring Classes

2011-01-27T07:49:00.000-08:00

It's time for spring art classes at LRMA! Our Home School Fridays start up again tomorrow for local home schooled students. This class will take place on the fourth Friday of every month, January through April, from 1:00 to 4:oo PM in our Museum Annex. No registration is necessary, just show up and have a good time! There is still time to sign your child up for the spring pottery class! The class is for K5 to 6th grade students and it will be every Tuesday in February from 3:30 to 5:oo in our Carriage House Studio on Seventh Street. The cost is $40 for Museum members, and $50 for non-members. Don't think that everything here is for the kids! We also have an adult pottery class taking place on every Tuesday in March. The classes are from 5:30 to 7:30 at night, so you can fit it in after work. Beginners are welcome and we will do projects on the potter's wheel and by hand. The cost is $50 for Museum members and $65 for non-members. Call Liz at the museum to reserve your spot at (601) 649-6374.

Guest Blogger: Holly Green

2011-01-25T14:01:00.000-08:00

AT THE MUSEUM -

Calling All Gardening Enthusiasts

February is not quite Spring, but almost. After cold, gray winter months have forced us indoors, most of us are looking forward to warm days, spring planting, and all things that bloom. In celebration of that theme, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will host an event for avid gardeners and those of us who wish we were.

LRMA will present its 9th annual Garden Lecture at 10:30 a.m. on Friday, February 4, in the Museum’s American Gallery. The lecture is co-sponsored by the Laurel Garden Club, a member of The Garden Club of America.

The speaker for the event will be Dr. Jeff Kuehny of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Dr. Kuehny is a Professor of Horticulture at Louisiana State University. He has taught numerous horticulture classes and his research programs have included new plant introductions and sustainable landscape management. He is currently working on the implementation of a master plan for LSU’s Agricultural Department’s Burden Center. His lecture will focus on plants that can provide year-round enjoyment in any space – large or small.

The garden lecture will be followed by a brief question-and-answer period and then a luncheon at the historic Rogers-Green House located across the street from the Museum. Tickets for the event are $35 per person and include lunch. To purchase a ticket or for more information, call the Museum at 601.649.6374.

The Garden Lecture is just one of our many, exciting events at LRMA. Whether your passion is fine art, music, or gardening, there truly is something for everyone right here - at your museum.

Holly Green is Director of Marketing at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

9th Annual Garden Lecture: Dr. Jeff Kuehny

2011-01-11T14:20:00.000-08:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, along with the Laurel Garden Club. will present its 9th Annual Garden Lecture on Friday, Feb. 4 at 10:30 a.m. in the LRMA American Gallery.

Dr. Jeff Kuehny, Professor of Horticulture at Louisiana State University, will present "My Favorite Flora for the Southern Garden, Patio and Home" which will focus on plants that can provide year-round enjoyment for any space – large or small.

Dr. Kuehny grew up on a farm in Northern Oklahoma with a passion for horticulture. He pursued his interest, earning a B. S. degree from Oklahoma State University, an M. S. Degree from North Carolina State University, and a Ph.D. from Clemson University. He conducted postdoctoral research at Cornell University.

Kuehny has lived in the deep south for more than 16 years. He has taught numerous horticulture classes, and his research programs have included new plant introductions and sustainable landscape management. He has a passion for all types of gardens and the plant material within. He is currently working on the implementation of a master plan for LSU’s Burden Center, which will help meet the needs of horticulture in the 21st century by combining the historic gardens of Louisiana landscape architect Steele Burden and programs of research, extension, and education in one unique location.

Following the lecture and a brief question-and-answer period, lunch will be served at the historic Rogers-Green House which is located across the street from the Museum. Tickets are $35 per person and include lunch. Seating is limited. For reservations contact LRMA at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org.

The Garden Lecture is presented by Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the Laurel Garden Club, a member of The Garden Club of America.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in Historic Downtown Laurel.

Folk Art Symposium - January 20, 2011

2011-01-11T08:36:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present a Folk Art Symposium in conjunction with the exhibition Take Time to Appreciate: Photographs of Mrs. L. V. Hull and Reverend H. D. Dennis by Bruce West on display in the LRMA Lower Level Galleries. The symposium will be held Thursday, January 20, 2011 beginning at 1 p.m.

Presenters will be Bruce West, Take Time to Appreciate photographer, Emilie Taylor, co-producer of the documentary “God’s Architects,” and Dr. Stanley Harkness of “The Friends of L. V. Hull.”

Bruce West is a Professor in the Department of Art and Design at Missouri State University. He has received a number of awards for his photographic work including fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Ford Foundation for the Arts, and the Polaroid Corporation. His photographs are included in numerous public and corporate collections such as The Library of Congress, Saint Louis Art Museum, The Houston Museum of Fine Arts, the Victoria and Albert Museum, and the Paine Webber Corporation. Recent exhibitions include Acts of Faith at the Noorderlicht Photofestival in Groningen, The Netherlands, The Mississippi Story at the Mississippi Museum of Art, Contemporary American Photography at the Internationale Fototage in Mannheim, Germany, and Recent Acquisitions in Photography at The Nelson Atkins Museum of Art.

God's Architects, produced by Zach Godshall and Emilie Taylor, tells the stories of five spiritually inspired artist-architects and their enigmatic creations. Taylor is a native of south Louisiana and works at the Tulane School of Architecture as an instructor and coordinator of design-build projects for the Tulane City Center. Taylor’s education includes a technical building background at the University of Southern Mississippi followed by a master’s degree in architecture at Tulane. Before the storm and the rebuilding efforts that followed, Emilie conducted a traveling fellowship across the south to meet, document, and study these self-taught builders. The lecture given at the end of that fellowship was a way of introducing these folk architects and their works to the design community. Between furniture making and screen printing experiments, Emilie is in the process of compiling a book on these makers and their inspired creations.

Dr. Stanley Harkness represents “The Friends of L. V. Hull.” Massey will discuss the group’s efforts to preserve the home of L. V. Hull in Kosciusko.

The symposium is generously sponsored by BancorpSouth, Laurel Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Kia, Mississippi Power Co., and Sanderson Farms.

At the Museum: Research and Copyright

2011-01-07T13:36:00.000-08:00

With today’s availability of books, magazines, images, and ephemera, along with the ease of scanning, it's hard to resist the joy of research. Much of the desired information can be accessed through libraries, archives and museums but most institutions have limited staff and space. The downturn of the economy along with institutional closures, staff layoffs and the wide-ranging options available through computers and the Internet are factors influencing the future of long-term collecting, storage and access.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art now has the art collection database online and available to the public. The database is an added tool for patrons and it allows the patron to view artwork that may be in storage or inaccessible by distance.

The local history archives will be the next collection to be scanned and digitally stored, but at this time, very little has been done. While requests for copies of local history photos have increased, access to the collection remains limited. To assure someone is available to assist you with your request, please call to make an appointment in advance to view the vertical files and archival material.

For those seeking images, the following process is available: Access the museum's website at www.LRMA.org, click on Collections, then click on Rights and Reproductions. At the bottom of the page, click on Download the Image Request Form. Complete the form and fax it to the Museum.

A fee schedule is also available on the Rights and Reproductions page. The process usually takes around 6-8 weeks depending on availability and staff time. Requests for artwork, library information and archives should all be submitted using this same form.

If you have taken the time to peruse the database from the Museum's website, you will see that each image is available for viewing but is watermarked with our name embedded in the image. This watermark exists to prevent any illegal use of the image. The word "copyright" bears a heavy burden for anyone writing a book, an article, or other intellectual information to be circulated in any form.

The copyright law does not allow for anyone, including scholars, students or just interested persons, to publish the work of others without the creator's written permission even if the original creator is deceased. In many cases, the descendants of the creator own the copyright of materials. Each case is different and must be investigated.

Photography is also a medium included in the law. While the Museum owns many early Laurel photographs, we also own the copyright to those images. In recent times, decorations in local restaurants and businesses include the images of early Laurel photographs. A quick Internet search will also reveal the use of the Museum=s images on web sites and in books. The problem we are now facing includes permissions for these uses. A handful of patrons have asked for permission over the years but most have not. While we must keep stringent rules for art researchers and scholars, we require the same permission requests from local historians.

Individuals generating copies of images to sell or share with others is not allowed. Permissions and copies must be obtained from the source of copyright ownership and not from an outside source. Some other rules for use of Museum-owned imagery include the submission of an image proof, no changes in the image such as cropping or filling in by using a photo editing computer program, a submitted final copy of the published material and the appropriate fees paid by the patron. If you have specific needs for images, please complete the form and submit any special requests by accessing the form found on the Museum's website.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open Tuesdays - Saturdays from 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. and on Sundays from 1-4 p.m. For specific events and programs, consult the web site at www.LRMA.org or call the Museum at 601-649-6374.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Holiday Hours

2010-12-16T09:15:00.001-08:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will be closed in observance of the Christmas holiday on Friday, Dec. 24 and Saturday, Dec. 25. The museum will be closed in observance of the New Year's holiday on Friday, December 31 and Saturday, January 1.

Don't forget that we have an excellent gift shop that just might meet your last-minute holiday shopping needs!

Take Time to Appreciate

2010-12-09T14:39:00.000-08:00

Bruce West, Reverend Dennis with Candelabra

Bruce West, Mrs. L. V. Hull #3

photo: Bruce West

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present Take Time to Appreciate: Photographs of Mrs. L. V. Hull and Reverend H. D. Dennis by Bruce West on display in the Lower Level Galleries December 15, 2010 through February 23, 2011.

Bruce West has been documenting the rural landscape and culture of the Mississippi Delta and surrounding regions for the past thirteen years. West takes simple and direct portraits of the people he visits and photographs each year, including the two artists highlighted in this exhibition, Mrs. L. V. Hull (c. 1943-2008) and the Reverend H. D. Dennis (b. 1916). The title for the exhibition comes from a sign created by Hull, a folk artist from Kosciusko, Mississippi, and speaks of West’s primary objective as a photographer. The Reverend H. D. Dennis, “Spiritual Advisor to the World,” is an independent preacher in Vicksburg, who has transformed his wife Margaret’s grocery store into a one-of-a-kind non-denominational church. In his list of the ten most significant architectural sites in the South, noted American architect and MacArthur Fellow Samuel Mockbee described Margaret’s Grocery: “Built by Reverend H. D. Dennis, its crude materials and methods of construction place it in an ethereal state of being and perpetual sense of beauty.” While documenting Dennis’ creative and spiritual work, West says the photographs “also offer a meditation on the rigors, torments, and joys of the life of an ascetic and affirm the possibility of an authentic life.”

West has received grants from the NEA, the Ford Foundation, and the Polaroid Corporation. His work is included in many collections, including the Saint Louis Art Museum, the Houston Museum of Fine Arts, The Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art, and others. He has exhibited in New York City, Germany, the Netherlands, and across the United States. He is currently Professor of Art at Missouri State University in Springfield, Missouri.

The exhibition is generously sponsored by BancorpSouth, Laurel Ford, Lincoln, Mercury and Kia, Mississippi Power Co., and Sanderson Farms.

Gala, Gala, Gala

2010-11-29T08:57:00.000-08:00

We are going to be closed to the public on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, December 3, 4, and 5th. However, we will be here! Our annual Gala is this Saturday, and we need the whole three-day weekend to prep, to party, and to clean it up.

Gala preparation actually started months ago, with committees asking for auction item donations, shopping for big-ticket auction items, planning menus and decorations and party favors... but this week, we ramp up into high gear. Before Thanksgiving, we cleared the lower level galleries of art and put up category signs, and then put out tables for silent auction.

Today, Monday, we are starting silent auction display in those galleries, and clearing art out of the Stairwell Gallery. Not to worry, though: we still have plenty to see in all of our permanent collection galleries. Volunteers and staff are busily gathering all of the auction items into one place, working on decorations (Mandy and Angie outdo themselves every year, it seems), and coordinating everyone from caterers to florists and the Guild ladies who host the auction preview party. It's a hectic week, and an important one for us.

Gala is coming very, very soon.

2010-11-17T08:28:00.000-08:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its annual fund-raising event The Azure Ball: A Grecian Island Fantasy on Saturday, December 4. Highlighting the evening will be the Live and Silent Auctions, featuring paintings by some of the region’s best-known artists, trips to exotic locations, exquisite pieces of jewelry, and more.

Gala attendees will dine on a menu of authentic Greek delicacies presented by Nick Apostle of Nick’s Restaurant in Jackson. Apostle came onto the dining scene in 1983 and has since set the benchmark for Jackson restaurants. Nick’s was the first Mississippi restaurant to receive Wine Spectator’s "Award of Excellence," and has repeatedly been named "Best Fine Dining" establishment by Mississippi Magazine. Nick’s has been featured in Ford Times Magazine and in Delta’s Sky Magazine as Jackson’s best restaurant for the business traveler. Nick’s executive chef Steven D’Angelo trained under Chef Emeril Lagasse at NOLA and Emeril’s in New Orleans. He has had national media exposure with segments on Good Morning America, CNN, and Food Network’s Emeril Live. Both Apostle and D’Angelo bring careful attention to every culinary detail as well as a fresh approach to incorporating regional foods.

Later in the evening, those in attendance will enjoy music by The Triple Lindy. Based in Hattiesburg, The Triple Lindy consists of Brandon Webb, Ben Jones, Wes Brooks, and Joey Odom. The band has performed together for the past 15 years in and around the state of Mississippi, playing a wide selection of music from swing and oldies to blues and classic rock. Each member of the band has live entertainment experience going back as far as 20 years playing events with national and internationally known touring artists.

LRMA members at the Sponsor ($100) level and above may purchase tickets to The Azure Ball. Tickets are $100 each and include an invitation to the Auction Preview Party on Thursday, December 2.

For more information or to reserve a table for the Gala, please contact the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org.

LRMA Shop Open House - great holiday shopping!

2010-11-15T09:09:00.001-08:00

Kicking things off from 10 a.m. until noon, co-authors Charline McCord and Judy Tucker, along with illustrator Wyatt Waters, will sign their new book Christmas Memories from Mississippi. Neil White, editor of Mississippians, will be on hand to sign copies of this new book. Sarah Grafton of Wolfe Studio will showcase a selection of exquisite hand-painted birds.

Among the special gifts will be Whitt glass bowls, vases, and bottles, Old 61 Frames, and an array of double-weave Choctaw baskets. The Museum Gift Shop carries a wide selection of books including the LRMA Guild’s cookbook A Taste of the Guild, as well as notecards and other stationery items. There will be many unique items for children including nostalgic toys, books, and other stocking stuffers. For a gift that will commemorate a visit to the Museum, there are LRMA t-shirts, canvas totes, handbooks, and mugs.

The event is open to the public. Free gift wrapping will be offered to Museum members.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh
Street in downtown Laurel. For more information call 601.649.6374.

Walt Grayson at LRMA on Thursday, November 18

2010-11-09T12:37:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present ArtTalk on Thursday, November 18 at noon in the Museum’s Lower Level Lecture Hall. Author Walt Grayson will be the featured speaker and will discuss his newly released book Oh! That Reminds Me: More Mississippi Homegrown Stories. A book-signing will follow immediately after ArtTalk.

Walt Grayson was born and raised in Greenville, Mississippi. He was an announcer for Greenville radio station WJPR while in high school. His first television experience came as a weekend weather fill-in and an occasional travel feature reporter, while working full time in radio at Jackson's WSLI.

Grayson joined the WLBT-TV team as a weather anchor in 1984. He takes viewers on a "Look Around Mississippi" weekly on WLBT and also hosts Mississippi ETV's Mississippi Roads program. He has been inducted into the Associated Press Mississippi Broadcasters Hall of Fame.

Grayson writes a monthly newspaper article for the Electric Power Associations of Mississippi. He is also author of three books: Jackson the Good Life, and Looking Around Mississippi with Walt Grayson, as well as Looking Around Mississippi Some More with Walt Grayson.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

New Guild Members

2010-10-29T13:36:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art welcome new members to its Guild of Docents and Volunteers. Pictured left to right are:

Sharon Loving, Nancy Musgrove, Chick Occhipinti, Judy McGlothlin, Delight Jefcoat, Betty Dupuy, Melinda Youngblood, Cynthia Welborn, and Diane Long. New members not pictured are Linda Johnson, Rosemary Patrick, Peggy Wedgeworth, Nancy Cox, and Kent Miller.

For more information about the LRMA Guild contact 601.649.6374 or www.LRMA.org.

Art Talk is coming up on October 21

2010-10-05T13:58:00.000-07:00

October 21, Noon, in the Lower Level Galleries

October's Art Talk features Gil Hoffman and Tony Howe, co-authors of the newly released book Yellow Pine Capital: The Laurel, Mississippi Story, an account of the era when Laurel was the lumber production capital of Mississippi

Book-signing to follow Art Talk.

October 7th - Come to LRMA to learn about the Mississippi School for the Arts

2010-09-28T07:49:00.000-07:00

The Mississippi School of the Arts (MSA) will be holding an Information Event for interested students and parents Thursday, October 7th from 5:30 p.m. till 7:00 p.m. at The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art – 565 North Fifth Ave. – Laurel, MS. The event will be in the lower level galleries. Please enter through the north garden entrance. Come and go as you please between 5:30 p.m. and 7:00 p.m.

The Mississippi School of the Arts is an eleventh and twelfth grade visual and performing arts residential, public high school located in Brookhaven, MS. Students not only meet and exceed the traditional Mississippi high school curriculum, they receive special instruction in visual arts, vocal music, dance, literary arts and theatre. Students interested in MSA apply their sophomore year. Last years graduating class received more than $2.6 million in scholarship offers for college.

For more information call 601-823-1300. Applications to attend MSA are available online at www.msa.k12.ms.us or can be requested over the phone, by email: admissions@mde.k12.ms.us, or at the Information Event on October 7th . Application deadline for the 2011-2012 school year is February 1, 2011.

Sunday Concert, October 3: James Martin

2010-09-24T07:38:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present "Continental Soul", a Sunday Concert on October 3 at 2 p.m. in the LRMA American Gallery featuring baritone James Martin.

Martin has won critical acclaim for his performances in opera, musical theater, and concert as a versatile singer/actor and entertainer, with a wide artistic repertoire. He has appeared with leading musical organizations throughout the United States and abroad, including opera companies of Mississippi, Chicago, San Francisco, Santa Fe, St. Louis, New York, Toronto, Strasbourg, Basel and Oslo. Martin has performed at the music festivals of Marlboro, Ravinia, Aspen, and Tel Aviv; and made concert appearances with New York’s Continuum, Summergarden, Joy in Singing, the American Composers Orchestra, Meet the Composers, the New York Festival of Song, Lincoln Center’s African-American History and American Songbook series. Some of his operatic roles include Mozart’s Figaro and Don Giovanni and Pistola in Verdi’s Falstaff.

He received a Bachelor of Music degree from Illinois Wesleyan University and his Master of Music from the Julliard School. Martin is adjunct instructor of voice at Millsaps College, artistic consultant for the Hattiesburg Civic Chorus and Concert Association, and co-founder of the Mississippi Vocal Arts Ensemble.

His program "Continental Soul" will feature American and English songs by composers including Ralph Vaughn Williams, Virgil Thompson, Duke Ellington, and Barry Manilow.

This Sunday Concert is presented by the Hattiesburg Civic Chorus and Concert Association and sponsored by the Cooper-Neill Music Fund. The concert is free and open to the public.

Changing out the galleries soon!

2010-09-22T13:13:00.000-07:00

Well, the Pink Panther exhibit is closed, and we start packing it on Thursday. De-installing an exhibit isn't just taking pictures off the wall. Our Registrar does a condition report for each artwork first, which is a careful inspection to make sure everything is in the same condition it was in upon arrival. Then we close the gallery, wrap up the artwork, pack it back into its original crates, and label it for pickup. Then we have to take down labels, remove nails, spackle and paint nail-holes, remove the educational materials, tally up the results of the visitor survey, and take down any signs.

To put up the next show, we first have to unpack and condition-report the objects. For Domestic Landscapes, the next show, we also create text panels, labels, and a wall sign. All of the artwork comes into the gallery and leans against the wall; then we move pictures around until we like the order and arrangement. Then we hang artwork, labels, a sign, produce a visitor survey and possibly an educational activity table, and adjust the lights (which means Todd has to climb up and down the ladder about a million times).

We usually take anywhere from one to three weeks for a gallery change, depending on how complex the installation is, and how large the exhibition will be. Now that we have fancy new upstairs bathrooms, we can just lock down the Lower Level Galleries and get to the business of art handling, without having to escort visitors to the downstairs bathrooms.

Even with the Lower Level Galleries closed from now through September 30, there's plenty to see in the permanent collection galleries and the Stairwell Gallery.

Heritage Arts Festival 2010

2010-09-17T09:22:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its 18th annual Heritage Arts Festival on Saturday, October 2, from 10 a.m. - 2 p.m. On the Museum’s front lawn in recognition of National Arts and Humanities Month.

This year’s theme, "Made in Mississippi," will feature art projects including Walter Anderson-inspired ceramic pots, artist demonstrations, and face painting. Musical entertainment will be provided by The Grayson Capps Trio.

The festival is free of charge, and pizza and soft drinks will be served while supplies last. In the event of rain, the festival will be held at Sawmill Square Mall.

Heritage Arts Festival is generously sponsored by Laurel Arts League, Neel-Schaffer, Coca-Cola of Laurel, The First, and Hughes, Inc. The festival is also supported by the Mississippi Arts Commission.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in Historic Downtown Laurel. For more information, please call 601-649-6374 or visit the Museum’s website at www.LRMA.org.

Guest Blogger: Tommie Rodgers

2010-09-15T12:30:00.000-07:00

At the Museum: Our Favorite Things

If you haven’t visited the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art since the “NASA|ART” exhibition earlier this summer, you have missed out on seeing some of our old favorites that are installed in the Stairwell Gallery. It’s not unusual to see these friends hanging in the galleries from time to time but this exhibition has a twist.

Customarily, our curator selects works from the permanent collection and decides which items to include as well as determines their location on the wall. ”Our Favorite Things: Works from the American Art Collection” features works chosen by various members of the LRMA staff including our building superintendent, development director and library cataloguer, to name a few.

There are nineteen paintings and works on paper on display and of those, half are from Mississippi or have lived in Mississippi during their lifetime. Of the two pieces by Laurel artists, Amorita Gordon and Billy Ford, Gordon’s “Still Life with Red Lilies” was selected by Librarian Donna Smith. Her statement reveals her thoughts of the cold weather where she spent her childhood. She states the “painting is like a huge burst of spring and summer combined, with its own assurance of sunshine and happiness.”

Former Intern Nancy Wright enjoys “Misty Day” by Billy Ford and shares that “Ford paints with the colors of blue and focuses on the subtleties of the color instead of a recognizable subject. His fluidity of paint and abstract use of form allow me to focus on what I feel rather than what I am being told to feel.”

Mississippi photographer Birney Imes evokes other thoughts in Director of Marketing Holly Green. Green states that, “there is something very honest about photography...when you shoot black and white film, you get down to the bare bones of it all - clean lines, contrast between light and dark, positives and negatives. This photograph is beautiful to me because of the proximity Imes is granted, showing that he obviously has the girl’s complete trust.”

Visitor Services Coordinator Liz Brumley is reminded of the sense of home in the works of Mississippi watercolorist William Hollingsworth. “These two small watercolors of Hollingsworth’s depict the comfort and joy found in the familiar. ‘The Filling Station’ could be the one down the road from my grandmother’s home,” Brumley writes.

Laurel native Allyn Boone, the museum’s Director of Development, conveys her impressions of “The Bather” by Alice Neel in her words, “I love the colors in the artwork, particularly the green ocean and the blue shadow, as well as the confidence of the young girl in the two-piece bathing suit and floppy hat.”

Angie King, the museum’s Outreach Coordinator, appreciates “Forward Together” by Jacob Lawrence as she states that “Lawrence’s use of movement and color create a very powerful image of the road to freedom” in the story of Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad.

My favorite for this season is Miriam Hirsch’s “Wheel of Fortune,” I share that “Hirsch’s painting is full of spinning action, playfulness and child-like whimsy...(the painting) invites the viewer to join in on the unpredictable fun.”

Of course, I can’t share every object in the exhibition but I hope I’ve piqued your interest. Seeing and learning about art doesn’t have to be earth-shattering or too high-brow to understand and we all interpret differently. Educating oneself on the artist, historical events, societal trends, fashions, and economic and political influences of the day will shed light on the subject matter and its treatment by the artist. The viewer’s knowledge of art, emotional interpretation and interest in the subject matter will combine to enhance the interpretation.

I invite you to come by and compare your own opinions with those of our staff members. Would you interpret some of the same ideas?

Our building superintendent sums it all up when he describes “Mackerel” by Marie Hull. “What this represents to me is four of my favorite things: Food, Fishing, Mississippi and Art.” What more can I say?

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

September Art Talk: Ellis Anderson

2010-09-14T07:24:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will kick off a new Art Talk series on Thursday, September 16 at noon in the Museum’s Lower Level Lecture Hall. In recognition of the five-year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Ellis Anderson, author of Under Surge, Under Siege: The Odyssey of Bay St. Louis and Katrina, will be the featured speaker.

Anderson, a writer and photographer, was winner of the 2010 Eudora Welty Book Award presented by Mississippi University for Women in recognition for Under Surge. The book was also noted as an "Editor’s Recommendation," by Barnes and Noble and the Times-Picayune has twice listed the book as one of its "5 Hot Reads." This project was awarded a Fellowship for Literary Excellence by the Mississippi Arts Commission.

Anderson bears witness to the events of Hurricane Katrina by sharing entries from her personal journal, one she began shortly before the storm and continued for more than three years. In Part One – "Under Surge," she details the terror of the storm and the trauma of the immediate aftermath. "Under Siege" follows the plucky community through the next three bizarre years of recovery. The journal entries are interwoven with accounts from other survivors from this close-knit coastal arts community. The book also includes over 50 images by Anderson and photographer Joe Tomasovsky.

An artist and gallery owner before Katrina, Anderson has since served as president of a large community activist organization, giving her a unique insider’s view of the town’s post-storm dilemmas. During the recovery process, she volunteered in numerous community endeavors, garnering recognition as a Hancock County Outstanding Citizen, a Gulf Coast Preservation Hero, and receiving a Heritage Award from the Bay St. Louis Historic Commission. In 2008, she was named Mississippi Public Citizen of the Year by the Mississippi chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

Internships at the LRMA

2010-08-27T07:24:00.000-07:00

The LRMA offers internships in four departments: Curatorial, Marketing, Education, and the Library. We are happy to partner with colleges to help students meet the requirements for college credit.

For more information and the application, visit our website: http://lrma.org/about/staff/

Guest Blogger: Angie King

2010-08-26T08:12:00.000-07:00

At The Museum: Jump into Fall Classes at the Museum

　

In September, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will start fall off right with some great art classes for everyone in the family. Beginning on September 8, After School Art Lessons will be offered every Wednesday from 3:30 to 5 p.m. through November 10 in the Museum Annex. This ten-week class will introduce children in K5 through sixth grade to different kinds of artistic media, from paint to clay to metal embossing. Each child will take home a new project each week. The class costs $90 for Museum members and $120 for non-members. Call the Museum now to reserve your child’s spot at (601) 649.6374.

If your child wants to get messy and have fun, sign them up for our Kids’ Pottery Class on Tuesdays in September. The class will meet in the Carriage House Studio on Seventh Street beginning Tuesday, September 7 from 3:30 to 5 p.m. Children in K5 through sixth grade will learn to create beautiful works of art in clay with hand building techniques and on the potter’s wheel. This class costs $35 for Museum members and $45 for non-members. Reservations are required so call today as this class fills up quickly!

Home School Fridays have begun again for the fall. This is a free, drop-in class that takes place in the Museum annex from 1 - 4 p.m. Once a month for home-schooled students in any grade. Each month participants can make a different art project and take it home. Come and create great artwork while meeting new friends. Fall dates for Home School Fridays will be September 24, October 22, and November 19. Reservations are not required - just come and have fun.

For adults, we offer an opportunity to make a unique piece of jewelry in Jennifer Myrick’s Precious Metal Clay Jewelry Class. The class will be held Saturday, September 25 from 10 a.m. Until 2 p.m. In the Carriage House Studio. Ms. Myrick is a local jewelry artist who makes her own creations from scratch. She will teach participants how to use precious metal clay to make totally unique pieces. Each participant will walk away with at least one finished piece. A light lunch will be provided with the class. The cost is $50 for Museum members and $60 for non-members. Call to reserve your space. For more information on this class, or on any of our great educational programs, please check out the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art website at www.LRMA.org or call the Museum at (601) 649.6374.

Angie King is the Education Outreach Coordinator at Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Firefighters' & Police Tour

2010-08-25T14:34:00.000-07:00

Once a year, we invite the local police and fire departments for the "behind-the-scenes" tour of the Museum. We like to remind them where the entrances, exits, gas shut-off, and so forth are. How do you get into the attic? Where's the electrical panel? What's in the basement? All those things, we hope, will help them do their job if we ever have an emergency. We certainly enjoy their visits, and we hope they do, too.

LRMA Guild Membership Coffee coming soon

2010-08-18T11:05:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Guild of Docents and Volunteers will hold its annual membership coffee on Tuesday, August 24, from 10:00 - 11:30 a.m. at the Museum.

The coffee offers an opportunity for guests to learn more about this integral part of the Museum. Guild members are actively involved in many facets of the Museum from assisting with annual events such as Heritage Festival, Gala Preview Party, and Rogers-Green House fund raiser to giving tours and assisting the Museum staff.

Patti Slocki is chairman of this year’s membership coffee and Lou Bankston is membership chairman for the Guild.

Anyone interested in learning more about the Museum and the Guild may attend the coffee. For more information call Holly Green at 601-649-6374.

For more information about the Guild.

School is back in session...

2010-08-11T12:13:00.000-07:00

Summer vacation is over...now if only the summer temps would go away, too.

If you're a teacher, be sure and check out our educational resources at http://lrma.org/education/ and contact one of our education curators if you have questions. They have lots of activities planned for the school year, including Heritage Festival in October, Very Special Arts Festival for kids with special needs, a Spring Break Art Break, and more. Keep an eye on the website and the blog for classes and programs for kids and teachers.

If you're a parent, let your childrens' teacher know that we are here, ready and eager to partner with them.

In the Stairwell Gallery: "Our Favorite Things"

2010-08-10T12:32:00.001-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art presents Our Favorite Things, on view in its Stairwell Gallery now through November 2010.

This exhibition was curated by members of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art staff. Each staff member was given the opportunity to visit the Museum vaults and choose his or her favorite contemporary work(s) from the American collection for this show. The exhibition also features labels written by staff members explaining why or how they made their selections. Jill Chancey, PhD, LRMA curator said "The goal of this exhibition is to remind visitors that every exhibition at the Museum is the result of a whole team of people behind the scenes working together."

Featured artists range from Mississippians Birney Imes and Walter Anderson to Fairfield Porter and Alice Neel, and works in various media including photography, lithography, painting, and woodblock print.

Image: Birney Imes, III, Girl and Dog, 1983.

Spike!

2010-08-05T11:14:00.000-07:00

It has been my observation that people who grew up in Laurel remember, at the very least, two things from the Museum collection: the second-smallest basket in the world, and the suit of armor. The tiny basket is currently on display in the drawer full of miniature baskets in the Basket Gallery. The suit of armor, which was in the European Gallery when I arrived, has been moved to the Reading Room. (His sharp, spiky lance in close proximity to our European paintings made me nervous.)

Spike, the suit of armor, has been in the museum's collection for many decades, and is a relic of the time before the LRMA had a defined collections management policy. Today, we only collect items that fit into one of our five collecting areas, but when the museum was new, all sorts of things came into the collections from all over the world: Chinese snuff bottles, Baroque tapestries, Sevres porcelain, and, well, Spike. Although he doesn't really meet any of our collecting guidelines any more, we keep him on display because he is such a fond memory of so many Laurelites.

It's hard to get a good picture of him - he's both dark and reflective, and the Reading Room is a bit dim, but I did my best. Be sure and stop in the Reading Room and say hello to Spike next time you visit.

At the Museum: Fairfield Porter

2010-07-28T13:14:00.001-07:00

The recently re-installed Stairwell Gallery features contemporary American art from the Museum collection selected by members of the staff. Each staff member was given the opportunity to visit the vaults and choose a favorite work from the American collection for this show. The goal of this show is to bring a new perspective into the galleries, and remind our visitors that every exhibition at a museum is the result of whole team of folks “behind the scenes.”

One of the paintings selected, Fairfield Porter’s The Tennis Game, is a perennial favorite with visitors. Acquired from the artist in 1973, the large oil on canvas depicts a game of doubles on a tennis court surrounded by rich green foliage. The setting was the Porter family’s summer home, Great Spruce Head Island, Maine. The concrete tennis court, which had been built just before World War I, provides a pale color field upon which four figures are distributed. Porter began working on this composition during the summer of 1970, but did not resolve it to his satisfaction until two years later. One often thinks of tennis as a fast-moving game, but Porter’s figures are static; this is clearly a pause in the game. The figure farthest back is preparing to hit the ball; it hovers, suspended in mid-air, just above his racquet. The nearest figure (in blue) is not yet in the bent-knee position one would expect from a player preparing to return. This is a casual summer set between family members, and the languid feeling of the canvas reflects that. Porter subtly uses the repetition of the ovals of the racquets (and their shadows) to draw the viewer’s eye back into the canvas. He also contrasts the geometry of the net and the fence with the irregular vertical forms of the trees and the figures. This is a painting that seems simple, but is complex enough to bear up to prolonged scrutiny.

Porter’s work, often called “Figurative Expressionism,” followed directly upon that of a slightly older generation of artists, the Abstract Expressionists. They rejected representational imagery in favor of pure composition, color, line and gesture; whereas Porter and his contemporaries, such as Elaine de Kooning and Larry Rivers, opted to use the figure, the landscape, and other imagery as neutral elements of the composition. This is not a picture about personalities, interpersonal drama, or even the identity of the players, whose faces remain anonymous. This is a picture about the relationship between greens, whites, and blues; the complex interaction of the vertical and diagonal lines; and the feeling of the rest and relaxation of summering on a remote island.

In a way, The Tennis Game feels like the immediate descendant of Claude Monet’s Parisian vacationers, lounging at the beach side or playing croquet in the dappled shade. Porter, like Monet, depicts the tranquil leisure time of affluent city-dwellers. Another painting in the Museum collection, Kate Freeman Clark’s Return from the Shore, (currently hanging in the American Gallery) depicts exactly the same kind of summer leisure, albeit sixty years earlier. This subject matter - the everyday stuff of modern life, things of no great political or historical import - was very much the emphasis of the French Realists, who inspired the French and American Impressionists, to whom both the Abstract and Figurative Expressionists, such as Porter, acknowledged their debt.

Fairfield Porter’s The Tennis Game, and eighteen other works in the exhibition “Our Favorite Things,” will be on display in the Stairwell Gallery until November of this year.

Jill R. Chancey, PhD, is curator of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

image:
Fairfield Porter (1907-1975)
The Tennis Game, 1972
Oil on canvas
A Lauren Rogers Museum purchase in part with funds from Mississippi Arts Commission, 73.78

The Rogers-Green House

2010-07-23T08:19:00.001-07:00

Visitors to the LRMA and Laurel locals may have noticed that the house across the street from the Museum is often the site of parties, receptions, weddings, and other social gatherings. The Rogers-Green House, built in 1903, was the home of Lauren Rogers, passed from his parents to their relatives Eleanor and Gardiner Green in 1950, and the Greens left the house to the LRMA in 2003.

Today, four full-time staff members have offices upstairs, and the ground level rooms are used for museum meetings and events. Although the Museum itself is not available for private functions, the Rogers-Green House is. We are quite busy during the late spring/early summer wedding season, and have hosted high school reunions, rehearsal dinners, baby showers, wedding showers, Christmas parties, and a variety of meetings.

For more information on rentals, call our Events Coordinator, Angie Jolly, at 601-649-6374.

For more information on the Rogers-Green House: http://lrma.org/about/rogers-green-house/

Guest Blogger: Mandy Buchanan

2010-07-21T09:26:00.001-07:00

Giving Laurel a Hand

The children of Laurel are getting an exciting new outdoor educational space. A classroom garden is being created near Oak Park School for area students to enjoy. Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has partnered with the City of Laurel to create an outdoor sculpture as a centerpiece to this new space.

The project began with the Museum Education staff casting the hands of students from Oak Park and Stainton Elementary Schools in cement. The hands will then be attached to a large metal tree our staff is preparing that will be installed in the center of the garden.

We are so excited to see this work of art come together. Watch for upcoming information about the opening of this new educational space.

Mandy Buchanan is the Curator of Education at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Image: left to right, Angie King, Todd Sullivan, and Mandy Buchanan

LAUREN ROGERS MUSEUM OF ART RECEIVES MISSISSIPPI ARTS COMMISSION GRANT

2010-07-19T12:17:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel has been awarded a $34,400 grant from the Mississippi Arts Commission (MAC). This grant is a portion of the $1.64 million in grants the Commission will award in 2010-2011 and will be used for general operating support. The grants are made possible by continued funding from the Mississippi State Legislature and the National Endowment for the Arts.

“Organizations across the state who receive grants from the Mississippi Arts Commission continue to prove that arts programs are vital to the success of their community. The grants awarded by the Commission provide funding for the staging of festivals, theater performances and many other arts-related activities,” said Malcolm White, Executive Director of MAC. “The arts provide a positive environment for learning, both in the classroom and in communities. Arts funding has a significant multiplier and for every dollar spent in the creative sector, eight dollars are realized in the local economy. That’s a good investment for any business.”

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is the only collections-based art museum between Jackson and the Mississippi Coast, thus playing a significant role in South Mississippi as an art education resource, field trip destination, and a venue for nationally significant traveling exhibitions. LRMA has been accredited by the American Association of Museums since 1972.

The Mississippi Arts Commission, a state agency, serves the residents of the state by providing grants that support programs to enhance communities; assist artists and arts organizations; promote the arts in education and celebrate Mississippi’s cultural heritage. Established in 1968, the Mississippi Arts Commission is funded by the Mississippi Legislature, the National Endowment for the Arts, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi Foundation, the Phil Hardin Foundation, Mississippi Endowment for the Arts at the Community Foundation of Greater Jackson and other private sources. The agency serves as an active supporter and promoter of arts in community life and in arts education. For information from the Mississippi Arts Commission, contact Susan Dobbs – 601/359-6031 or sdobbs@arts.state.ms.us

Indelible (P)ink: The Pink Panther and Popular Culture

2010-07-14T07:59:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art presents Indelible (P)ink: The Pink Panther and Popular Culture, on display July 22 through September 19 in its Lower Level Galleries.

The exhibition will open Thursday, July 22 with a lecture at 5:30 p.m. by exhibition curator Barbara Rothermel, Director of the Daura Gallery and Assistant Professor of Museum Studies at Lynchburg College in Lynchburg, Virginia. A “Pink Panther Party” will follow from 6:30 - 8 p.m.

Animation’s coolest anti-hero with the grooviest theme song ever, the Pink Panther was created by Friz Freleng for the opening title sequence of Blake Edwards’ 1963 film, The Pink Panther (MGM/United Artists). The movie starred Peter Sellers as the bumbling Inspector Clouseau, out to catch the thief of a legendary diamond called the pink panther. Accompanied by Henry Mancini’s mod jazz beat, Freleng’s animated Pink Panther sauntered suavely across the silver screen, straight into superstar status. This hip cat of unparalleled sophistication debuted on NBC-TV in 1964, captivating audiences in 140 cartoon shorts. A second series debuted in 1984 and continued for the next decade. This exhibition is a blast from the past, spying on the Pink Panther as an example of popular culture while uncovering his contribution to 20th century animation. The artifacts in this exhibition are in the Daura Gallery’s permanent collection, purchased through the Lauer Fund.

This exhibition is generously sponsored by Community Bank, Chas. N. Clark & Associates, Ltd., Laurel Bone & Joint Clinic, and Scruggs Photography.

Image: Cel from Service with a Pink Smile, Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc., 1993.

Asian Gallery re-opens

2010-07-08T08:12:00.000-07:00

The LRMA Asian Gallery, which has been closed since April, is now re-opened. The gallery has been used for the last few months for storage of crates from the exhibition, NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration. Now that those crates are packed and shipped off to their next destination, the Japanese Prints are again on display. Education Outreach Coordinator Angie King curated this selection, which consists mostly of prints with images of animals in them.

While we ordinarily exhibit only Edo period prints, she selected one print from the Meiji period, and one from the Modern period. These prints clearly reflect the Western European influence that entered Japan in 1858, at the end of the Edo period. Also on display are our newest print triptych, The Dragon King’s Palace: The Three Treasures Presented to Tawara Toda Hidesato by Utagawa Kuniyoshi (1797-1861), and a rare preparatory drawing for a triptych that was never produced, The Hour of the Snake by Utagawa Toyokuni (1769-1825). We know this particular image was never made into a print, because the preparatory drawing is destroyed in the process of making a woodblock print.

Guest Blogger: Holly Green

2010-07-01T08:54:00.000-07:00

With any organization, whether "for profit" or (as in our case) "not," numerous players are necessary to make it work. Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open to the public six days a week and is kept running on a daily basis by a staff of 10 full-time and five part- time employees. We are the faces you see most often, but there are two other groups who are tireless champions of this beloved institution. They deserve, at the very least, an official pat on the back via my little article today.

First, LRMA is governed by the Eastman Memorial Foundation Board of Directors, named for Lauren Eastman Rogers’ grandfather, Lauren Chase Eastman. The Board consists of 15 members who also serve on the Museum’s operating committees such as Collections, Programs and Exhibitions, Property, Personnel, and Finance. These committees, along with the full Board, meet quarterly in addition to participating in many of the Museum’s events throughout the year.

We have just wrapped up two busy weeks of committee and Board meetings, so it is quite fresh on my mind just what this dynamic group of individuals does for us. We are often commended on the involvement of our Board members and their belief in and commitment to the Museum. Their outstanding leadership has helped to bring LRMA to the level of excellence it is known for in the museum world today.

The second group, equally important in its own way, is the Museum’s Guild of Docents and Volunteers. Once again, LRMA is known for its strong volunteer program, a tradition that goes back several decades. We now have more than 100 volunteers and docents in our Guild, which is impressive for a small town. Museums in much larger cities have far fewer volunteers and docents.

Our docents give tours to huge numbers of school children each year, as well as collegiate art students, travelers passing through, and visiting dignitaries. Volunteers can be seen painting faces and stringing beads at our "front lawn" festivals and helping to shepherd children through the galleries. They often come on short notice when we call for assistance with a Museum mailing and bring a positive attitude with them, I might add. We are also blessed with some wonderful cooks in the Guild and are lucky enough to enjoy their culinary talents at many of our events. We are certainly grateful for all the gifts they possess and unselfishly share with us.

Both the Museum’s Board of Directors and its Guild of Docents & Volunteers give hundreds of hours of their time to the Museum each year. I fear we don’t say it often enough, so, from this Marketing Director and on behalf of the entire LRMA staff, thank you all for caring about "our" Museum. We truly appreciate all you do.

– Holly Green is Director of Marketing for the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Guest Blogger: Tommie Rodgers

2010-06-21T11:56:00.000-07:00

At the Museum: Collections Database Now Online

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is pleased to unveil its newly redesigned website, www.LRMA.org. It has a crisp, clean look as well as additional information concerning the Museum, its collections, classes and events. You can keep up with us on a daily basis through Facebook and Twitter as well.

If you need to do art research for your classes or you’re an art lover who just can’t get enough of the Museum’s collections, you will enjoy the access you can have to all of the Museum’s art.

Thanks to a $10,000 matching grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, the Museum was able to purchase equipment and hire a part-time cataloguer to photograph, scan images, and compile data from the accession records, the artist files, the Museum’s library and the Internet. This compiled information resulted in a well-completed catalogue within the Past Perfect Collections Database system for the Museum staff.

The Museum hired Anna Smith, a former intern, who holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Museum Studies, to compile the information for accessibility. She worked directly with Curator Jill Chancey and Registrar Tommie Rodgers. Since the position was temporary and created just for this grant, the system will be maintained by the curator and registrar.

The Past Perfect Collections Database allows staff to create accession and deaccession records, loans, condition reports, appraisal records, as well as track locations, create exhibit lists and perform research using specific parameters (i.e., Mississippi artists, works on paper, Choctaw baskets, etc.)

The completion of the two-year project now allows the Museum to share selected non-confidential information with anyone who has access to the Internet. This availability means that our local school children, college students, academic researchers, as well as people from all corners of the globe have equal access to any object that the Museum has accessioned into its collection.

When one views a catalogue record, they see an image of the artwork and pertinent data such as artist name, title, date, size, medium, technique, credit line, accession number, provenance, and related publications.

Each image is watermarked with the Museum’s name printed across it in faded letters. This marking is intentional and prevents viewers from downloading or using the images for publication purposes. Anyone interested in using an image from the collection must contact the Museum directly for permission and pay the related fees associated with reproduction rights.

One must also contact the copyright owner when obtaining permission to use an image. While the Museum owns the objects in its collections, we do not own copyright to many of them. In fact, we do not own the copyright on most images created after 1940 so the researcher will need to obtain the copyright permission from the artist or entity representing the artist’s estate. To access the database of artwork, go to the Museum’s website, click on "Collections," then click on "Collections Database." Work can be searched by a keyword or a researcher can perform a random image search.

To request images and permission to use them, click on "Collections," then click on "Rights and Reproductions." Under this heading, one can download the Fee Schedule and the Image Request Form.

I hope everyone will take advantage of the research options now available. We thank the National Endowment for the Arts for their financial support for this project.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Only 2 weeks left to see NASA|ART at LRMA

2010-06-15T11:53:00.000-07:00

NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration will be on view at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi through June 27. The exhibition is organized by SITES and NASA in cooperation with the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

NASA’s historic triumphs and pioneering legacy are well known to millions, but the inspiring rocket launches, moon landings and planetary explorations also have had an impact on the imaginations of America’s leading artists. As the space agency celebrates its 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) presents "NASA ART 50 Years of Exploration," featuring 72 works from artists as diverse as Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and William Wegman. Drawn from the collections of NASA and the National Air and Space Museum, the exhibition includes drawings, photographs, sculpture and other art forms and media. These works – ranging from the illustrative to the abstract – offer unparalleled insight into the private and personal moments, triumphant victories and tragic accidents that form the storied history of NASA.

For example, in Henry Caselli’s When Thoughts Turned Inward, the artist captures the serene, almost spiritual moment before takeoff, when an astronaut must prepare mentally for a mission. In Chakaia Booker’s Remembering Columbia, the tragedy and pain of the lost Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew are transformed in the twisting tire remnants preserved from one of the shuttle’s earlier missions. Andy Warhol melds Buzz Aldrin’s historic steps on the lunar surface with the unbridled exuberance and flashiness of the 1960s in his neon-lighted Moonwalk silkscreen.

The works featured in the exhibit date from the inception of the NASA Art Program in 1962, when NASA administrator James E. Webb asked a group of artists to illustrate, interpret and elucidate the space agency’s missions and projects. Since then, painters, musicians and conceptual artists have been with NASA every step of the way, strolling along launch pads, training in flight simulators, talking with engineers and technicians and visiting with astronauts before and after their flights.

NASA ART 50 years of Exploration, a companion book published by Harry N. Abrams in 2008, complements the national traveling exhibition.

NASA was established by Congress in 1958 "to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and for other purposes." The agency is headquartered in Washington, D. C., with 10 field centers and other facilities across the nation. NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research. www.nasa.gov

The National Air and Space Museum, composed of the flagship building on the National Mall in Washington and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., is home to the world’s finest collection of flight artifacts. From aircraft and space vehicles to engines, art and models, the wide array of the museum’s holdings tells the story of the history and technology of air and space exploration. The museum is also a key resource for research into the history, science and technology of aviation and space flight. www.nasm.si.edu

SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D. C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at www.sites.si.edu.

This exhibition is generously sponsored locally by Cellular South Foundation, Southern Metals Company of Mississippi, The Pruet Companies, RAPAD Drilling and Well Service, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, Jefferson Medical, Merrill Lynch, and Robison Tire Company.

Educational programming was partially funded through a Smithsonian Community Grant, funded by MetLife Foundation and administered by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service, which is used to strengthen the connections between museums nationwide and their communities.

Image: Robert T. McCall, Apollo 8 Coming Home, 1969; Oil on Canvas, 40 x 49. Courtesy Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum

Guest Blogger: Angie King

2010-06-11T08:23:00.000-07:00

Summer Fun at LRMA

Summertime is here at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, and the Museum is offering classes for everyone. Free Family Art is open to families with children of all ages. This program will take place every Wednesday in June from 1 - 4 p.m. in the Museum Annex. Families can stop by during this time to complete the week's art activity and take home what they have made. Parents are asked to stay with their children. Registration is not required.

In the month of June, Mark Brown, JCJC art instructor, will teach a found object sculpture class for an age range of junior high to adult. The class will meet on Tuesday and Thursday nights, June 8, 10, 15, and17, from 6 - 8 p.m. in the Carriage House Studio on Seventh Street. Participants are encouraged to bring at least one object from home that has personal significance to incorporate into a sculpture. Other items, such as wood, fabric, twine, wire, string, and metal can be brought to the class to use as well. Participants will learn various sculpture construction techniques. The cost for this class is $40 for Museum members and $50 for non-members.

Children have the opportunity to learn about making clay art in our annual Pottery Camp. This four-day camp will be held on June 15, 17, 22, and 24 in the Carriage House Studio. Children going into grades K5-3rd are encouraged to come from 10 a.m. Noon and children going into 4th - 6th grades should sign up for the afternoon session from 2 - 4 p.m. The cost for this camp is $35 for Museum members and $45 for non-members.

On Saturday, June 12, LRMA will host a Jewelry Workshop with Ellisville jewelry artist Robbin Lee. The workshop will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Carriage House Studio and will introduce participants to basic jewelry making techniques. The class is open to ages junior high to adult and will cost $10 to register. All materials will be bought directly from the artist at the workshop, so participants can choose materials to fit any budget. Everyone will leave with a finished piece of jewelry.

These are just a few of the exciting art opportunities that are being offered this summer at LRMA. For more information on any of these programs, please call the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art at (601) 649-6374 or check our website at www.LRMA.org.

Angie King is the Education Outreach Coordinator at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Daddy Rich Blues Band to play at LRMA Blues Bash

2010-05-27T07:12:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its 17th Annual "Blues Bash" Friday, June 4 from 6:30 - 10:30 p.m. on the Museum front lawn. This year’s event will feature The Daddy Rich Blues Band.

"Daddy Rich" (Richard Crisman) is a musician and songwriter hailing from Clarksdale, MS, and is currently an instructor at the Delta Blues Museum Arts & Education Program. The Daddy Rich Blues Band plays a mixture of original and popular blues numbers from the Delta, Chicago, and Hill Country styles and has released two CDs, both having received airplay on Commercial, College, Internet, and Satellite Radio stations. The band has also made television appearances on Gene Simmons Family Jewels on A&E, Little People Big World on The Learning Channel, and The Golf Channel.

Blues Bash tickets are $20 and include a barbecue dinner from The Smokehouse of Laurel. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum or by contacting 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, June 2. Guests should bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the fun. In case of rain, Blues Bash will be held at the Cameron Center.

Blues Bash is sponsored by Southern Beverage Company, BancorpSouth, Cellular South, Eagle Transportation, Ellis and Walters Dental Care, Gholson Burson Entrekin & Orr, PLLC, Kim’s Chrysler Toyota, The Koerber Company, Roy Rogers Body Shop, Coca-Cola of Laurel, Laurel Leader-Call, Rock 104, and WDAM-TV.

Proceeds from Blues Bash support the Museum’s education program. To purchase a ticket for Blues Bash or for more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374.

For more info about Daddy Rich, visit his website: http://sites.google.com/site/daddyrichbluespage/

LRMA Guild of Docents & Volunteers Awards Luncheon

2010-05-24T08:24:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Guild of Docents & Volunteers held their annual awards luncheon Tuesday, May 18, in the Museum's European Gallery.

Officers for 2010-11 are (left to right) Sharon Walters, Treasurer, Louise Welborn, Past President, Cynthia Sheppard, 1st Vice President, Allison Travis, Secretary, and Rosemary Norton, President. Not pictured: Janet Blouin, 2nd Vice President

Guild members who contributed 100+ hours to the Museum in 2009-10:
(seated l to r) Sharon Walters, Gay Morgan, Sarah Walls, Jean Holt, Catherine Nowicki.
(standing l to r) Faye Rogers, Louise Welborn, Allison Travis, Dianne Dudley, Patti Slocki, Cornelia Harrell, Mary Anne Sumrall, Lila Chancellor, Carolyn Mulloy, Cynthia Sheppard, and Becky Dalton. Not pictured: Lynn Busby, Margaret Ann Fortenberry, Sarah McMurry, and Sydney Swartzfager.

Guild members who contributed 50+ hours to the Museum in 2009-10.
(seated, l to r) Nan Abernathy, Jeanelle Smith, Lou Bankston, and Mary Beth Welch.
(standing l to r) Ellen Winter, Donna Applewhite, Billie Mapp, Peggy Melvin, and Susan Garrett.
Not pictured: Marilyn Biglane, Janet Blouin, Joan Brumfield, Jessica Carr, Pat Holifield, Jimmie Leone, Rosemary Norton, Sherry Shows, Ann Cameron Stone, Katie Sullivan, Dave Ann Wheat, and Debbie Yoder

LRMA offers Free Family Art classes

2010-05-20T09:29:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold Free Family Art classes every Wednesday in June from 1 - 4 p.m. in the Museum Annex. Participants will create a different project to take home each week in this come-and-go class. This summer’s classes will feature guest artists Sean Star Wars, Mark Brown, and Terrell Taylor. The classes are free and no reservation is required.

For more information about summer activities at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art contact 601.649.6374 or visit www.LRMA.org.

Blues Bash 2010

2010-05-19T09:04:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its 17th Annual "Blues Bash" Friday, June 4 from 6:30 - 10:30 p.m. on the Museum front lawn.

This year’s event will feature The Daddy Rich Blues Band from Clarksdale, MS. Tickets are $20 and include a barbecue dinner from The Smokehouse of Laurel. Tickets may be purchased at the Museum, or by contacting 601-649-6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, June 2. Guests should bring a lawn chair or blanket to enjoy the fun. In case of rain, Blues Bash will be held at the Cameron Center.

Blues Bash is sponsored by Southern Beverage Company, BancorpSouth, Cellular South, Eagle Transportation, Ellis and Walters Dental Care, Gholson Burson Entrekin & Orr, PLLC, Kim’s Chrysler Toyota, The Koerber Company, Roy Rogers Body Shop, Coca-Cola of Laurel, Laurel Leader-Call, Rock 104, and WDAM-TV.

Proceeds from Blues Bash support the Museum’s education program. To purchase a ticket for Blues Bash or for more information, call LRMA at 601-649-6374.

photo: Left to right: Ed Simmons (The Koerber Company), Rick Burson, Shirley Moore, and Noel Rogers (Gholson Burson Entrekin & Orr, PLLC), Cody McDonald (Southern Beverage Company), Ray Palmer (BancorpSouth), Debbie Blakeney and Tom Colt (Rock 104), Robin Holmes (Ellis & Walters Dental Care), Lisa Lowe (Cellular South).

Guest Blogger: George Bassi

2010-05-19T08:13:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art has been under construction! For the past several months, we have been facilitating the construction of new public restrooms as well as the construction of a new museum website.

The completion of a new addition for public restrooms in the upper level of the Museum was much anticipated. The approximately 700 square foot space is located off the stairwell gallery on the Museum’s main floor and features large restrooms and a separate family restroom. I know that this space will be utilized by tour groups and visitors for generations to come.

Of course, adding to a building of historical significance like the Museum is always a challenge. The Museum’s Board of Directors took great care in making the addition appropriate while providing modern amenities for our visitors.

Special thanks go to Board members Mike Foil, Bill Mullins and James Wray Bush as well as LRMA Building Superintendent Todd Sullivan for their efforts in making this project a reality.

Also under construction this spring has been the re-design of the Museum’s website, www.LRMA.org, by Burton’s Computer Resources of Laurel. Under the direction of LRMA Director of Marketing Holly Green, the new, expanded site will be up and running by the end of May with numerous features and more information. Besides a new look, the site will include two new areas of interest, social networking and a searchable collections database.

The Museum will be providing regular updates through Facebook and Twitter as well as continuing the Museum’s blog, Live from LRMA. The LRMA website will provide options for viewers to become fans of the museum through these two social networking sites, and we will be providing current information on Museum events, activities and news.

As part of a two-year digitization project funded by a grant from the National Endowment for the Arts, our entire collection will soon be on-line and easily accessed. Under the guidance of LRMA Registrar Tommie Rodgers and Curator Jill Chancey, the museum employed Anna Smith beginning in 2008 to digitize the collection. The LRMA website will contain a searchable database with images of every item in the collection as well as basic information about each object. This search tool will be invaluable for teachers, students and the general public– truly bringing the LRMA collection to the world.

George Bassi is Executive Director of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

LRMA will show Discovery Channel video series

2010-05-12T08:38:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art invites the public to view When We Left Earth: The NASA Missions on consecutive Tuesdays May 25; June 1, 8, 15, and 22 at 2 p.m. in the LRMA Reading Room.

In conjunction with its current exhibition NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration, LRMA will show the landmark series which details 50 years of the National Air and Space Administration. There is no charge to attend the series.

Narrated by award-winning actor Gary Sinise and presented by the Discovery Channel, When We Left Earth is the incredible story of humankind’s greatest adventure, as it happened, told by the people who were there. From the early quest of the Mercury program to put a man in space, to the historic moon landings, through the Soyuz link-up and the first un-tethered space walk by Bruce McCandless, this is how the space age came of age.

"The story of NASA is really America’s story. People coming together with grit, audaciousness and determination to go—quite literally—where no man had gone before," said John Ford, President and General Manager, Discovery Channel. When We Left Earth is a story of great human courage, innovation and groundbreaking science and technology. We are proud to have played a part in preserving NASA’s film archives so that future generations can celebrate this glorious past and dream and build an even brighter future."

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is a private, non-profit organization operating for the benefit of the public. The Museum is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel. The galleries are open from 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1 - 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free, but donations are accepted. For more information call 601-649-6374 or visit www.LRMA.org.

Photo: The mighty Saturn V rocket lifts off. It was and still is the largest, most powerful rocket ever built and launched.

Summer Studio Classes at the Museum

2010-05-05T12:32:00.001-07:00

Pottery Camp for Kids will be held Tuesdays and Thursdays - June 15, 17, 22, and 24 from either 10 a.m. until noon or 2 - 4 p.m. in the Carriage House Studio. Children must be entering K5 through 6th grade in the upcoming school year. Participants will be introduced to wheel-throwing, pinch, coil, and slab-building. Cost is $35 for members and $45 for non-members. Pottery Camp for Kids will be led by LRMA Education staff.

A Found Object Sculpture Class will be led by Jones County Junior College art instructor Mark Brown on Tuesdays and Thursdays - June 8, 10, 15, and 17 from 6 - 8 p.m. in the Carriage House Studio. Participants (ages Junior high to adult) should bring string, twine, wire, wood, metal or fabric from home. Cost is $40 for members and $50 for non-members.

A Jewelry Workshop will be taught by jewelry artist Robbin Lee on Saturdays, June 12 and July 10 from 10 a.m. until noon in the Carriage House Studio. Participants (ages Junior high to adult) will learn basic jewelry-making skills and leave with a finished piece. Cost of $10 per session plus cost of materials can be paid directly to Robbin Lee.

Summer Art Camp will be offered in two sessions this year. Participants may sign up for either July 13 - 16 or July 20 - 23, both from 10 a.m. until noon. Children must be entering K5 through 6th grade in the upcoming school year. "Art Detectives" will explore metal embossing, impasto painting, figurative ceramics, and printmaking. Cost is $45 for members and $55 for non-members. Summer Art Camp will be led by LRMA Education staff.

To register for the classes contact the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org. As class sizes are limited, reservation will only be held with payment.

At the Museum: Hester Bateman, Silversmith

2010-05-03T13:29:00.000-07:00

One of the five collections at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is our British Georgian Silver Collection, which features silver objects related to the service of tea made during the reigns of the English kings George I, George II, George III, and George IV (overall, 1714-1830). During this period, the British began to import tea from China, and by the 1730s, it had superceded those other exotic imports, coffee and chocolate, as Britain’s favorite fancy beverage. By 1720, it had become the most expensive of all household goods due to enormous import taxes, and so it was kept locked away, carefully monitored by the lady of the house, and the serving of tea was a luxurious process requiring elegant equipment, from kettles to sugar tongs. By the end of the century, however, the taxes had been lowered, and the working classes’ usual afternoon drink, beer, had become rather more expensive. By 1800, nearly everyone in Britain was devoted to tea drinking, and it remains a staple of the British culture today.

The rise in tea’s popularity at first inspired its early adopters to buy imported Chinese tea equipment, but demand soon outstripped supply, providing Britain’s craftsmen and craftswomen with a considerable financial opportunity. Early British silver and porcelain was often inspired by Chinese designs, but soon British silver took on its own design vocabulary.

It was into this environment that the young Hester Bateman (née Needham) came of age. Born in 1708, she married a goldsmith, John Bateman, in 1730, and soon John Bateman’s workshop became a family business. The term “goldsmith,” at that time, referred to nearly anyone in the metal trades, from dealers to burnishers, regardless of which metal was actually being worked. It was in her husband’s workshop that Hester Bateman learned the trade and craft of silversmithing, as did all of her children but one. Little is known of her early life and work, as any work she did in her husband’s shop would have been marked with her husband’s trademark. If he sub-contracted to another, larger shop, that smith would then put his mark over Bateman’s. Because of the collaborative nature of the craft workshop, we know little of Hester Bateman’s creative development. Not until her husband’s death in 1760 did Hester’s creative vision dominate the workshop. She registered her own trademark in 1761; only widows of men with trademarks were allowed to do this. Single women and married women had to work under a man’s trademark. Because of this, it is uncertain how many women worked in the silver trades during the Georgian period. At least forty women registered trademarks during Bateman’s lifetime, but hundreds more worked in the trade without name recognition.

Bateman’s style tended to the Neo-Classical, the dominant style of the late 18th century. She borrowed decorative motifs from Greek and Roman precedents, and chose austere, elegant forms rather than richly decorated rococo forms, a popular style imported from the European continent. Her signature decoration of thin-line beading accented the forms without obscuring them. Within a decade of taking over the business, Bateman was tremendously popular, selling to the rising middle classes (as tea became more affordable) as well as to the usual silver patrons, the church and nobility.

There are sixteen pieces of Hester Bateman silver in the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art collection, ten of which are on display in the Silver Gallery. All exhibit her elegant, Classical forms and decoration and her attention to detail and craftsmanship. They include asparagus tongs, a sweetmeat basket, a very fine teapot, and a sugar basket. One might wonder about asparagus tongs at tea, but the British tradition of “High Tea” was something like a light mid-afternoon meal, and therefore included both sweet and savory items, such as soups and vegetables. The British Georgian Silver Collection came to the Museum in 1972 as a gift from Thomas and Harriet Gibbons, who once owned and published the Laurel Leader-Call.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is open from 10:00 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday, and 1:00 p.m. until 4:00 p.m. Sunday. For more information about exhibitions, tours, and programming, call 601-649-6374 or visit www.LRMA.org.

Jill R. Chancey, PhD, is curator of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Free Family Art this Friday , April 30

2010-04-27T07:28:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art offers a Free Family Art class this Friday, April 30 in the Museum Annex from 2 - 5 p.m. for children of all ages. The class will be led by Meridian Junior College art instructor Terrell Taylor, printmaker, and will include a printmaking activity based on the current LRMA exhibition NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration.

The class is free of charge and no reservation is required. For further information contact LRMA at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org.

April Art Talk: Stephen Kirkpatrick

2010-04-20T11:24:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present Art Talk on Thursday, April 22 at noon in the American Gallery. In celebration of "Earth Day," the speaker will be wildlife photographer and author Stephen Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick's appreciation of nature began in childhood. His fascination with nature became a full time career when his father gave him his first camera in 1981. Since then, Kirkpatrick has published more than 2,900 photographs in books and magazines, including National Geographic Adventure, Sky, Skin Diver, Audubon, Gray's Sporting Journal, Natural History, Ducks Unlimited, Outdoor Photographer, BBC Wildlife, National Wildlife, and Sports Afield.

Kirkpatrick has published eleven pictorial coffee table books. His latest, Among the Animals: Mississippi, is his first children’s book. Kirkpatrick’s other titles include Images of Madison County, 25 years of shooting in his home county, Mississippi Impressions, a unique, pre-Hurricane Katrina look at Kirkpatrick’s home state, and Wilder Mississippi, a look at the state’s scenery and wildlife. Romancing the Rain, A Photographic Journey into the Heart of the Amazon was shot over nine years in the jungles of Peru. Kirkpatrick’s near-fatal experience on an ill-fated 1995 Amazon expedition is recounted in the gripping book Lost in the Amazon which was translated and published in Portuguese in 2008. The books Mississippi Impressions, Romancing the Rain, Wilder Mississippi, and Lost in the Amazon were written by Kirkpatrick’s wife, author Marlo Carter Kirkpatrick.

Kirkpatrick’s work has earned international acclaim, garnering awards in several national and international photography competitions. Lost in the Amazon was the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association’s 2007 Book of the Year. Romancing the Rain was a winner in the 2003 Benjamin Franklin Awards and in the Writer’s Digest International Self-Published Book Awards, and was the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association’s 2003 Book of the Year.

Kirkpatrick’s coffee table book Wilder Mississippi was the winner of the 2002 National Outdoor Book Award and the Southeastern Outdoor Press Association’s 2002 Book of the Year. Kirkpatrick won first place in the National Wildlife Federation’s "International Photography Competition" in both 2007 and 2008. He also has twice been named a winner in the prestigious International Wildlife Photographer of the Year competition held in London, England.

Kirkpatrick is in demand as a featured speaker for national conferences and conventions. He has appeared on the syndicated television programs "Wild Things" and "At Home Live," the Christian Broadcasting Network's "The 700 Club," The Outdoor Channel's "Adventure Bound Outdoors," and on several PBS and outdoor network specials.

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

So this is cool....

2010-04-13T13:40:00.001-07:00

SomaFM's "Mission Control playlist: http://somafm.com/play/missioncontrol

According to Soma FM:

Mission Control: Celebrating NASA and Space Explorers everywhere

Live Space Shuttle STS-131 Shuttle Mission Coverage. (Astronaut sleep periods are from aproximately 9am-5pm pacific time so there isn't much activity during that period.)

Soma is playing space-themed music, interspersed with reports on the mission.

Temporary gallery closing

2010-04-13T09:11:00.001-07:00

The Japanese Print gallery will be closed through the end of June.

Scholars and researchers, as always, are welcome to call and make an appointment with the curator or registrar if you need to see a particular work.

Come on in, the art is fine!

2010-04-13T09:06:00.000-07:00

NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration is now wide open and ready for visitors. We had a great turnout to the opening reception last Thursday, and hundreds of visitors on Saturday for the free family art (and science) day. Come ready to spend some time with some of the great artists of the 20th century: Andy Warhol, Robert Rauschenberg, and Norman Rockwell, just to name a few. Bring your 3-D glasses to view Stephen Sprouse's dress made with Mars Rover imagery. Sit down and enjoy a video performance by the Kronos Quartet. There's even a "make your own galaxy" art activity. This show has a little something for everyone, young and old. We even have a special bonus exhibit of autographed astronaut photos and memorabilia in the Museum lobby, thanks to a generous loan from a private collection in Hattiesburg.

The exhibit is open through June 27, so do come and see us. As summer approaches, I like to remind people: it's free, and it's air-conditioned.

For more information about the show, visit our Exhibitions page.

Sunday Concert Series: April 18, 2010

2010-04-12T08:00:00.001-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present the Sunday Concert Series along with the Hattiesburg Civic Chorus and Concert Association on Sunday, April 18 at 2 p.m. in the LRMA American Gallery.

The concert Romantic Visions will feature the Impromptu Piano Quartet playing works by Felix Mendelssohn and Antonin Dvorak. The quartet is composed of USM faculty members - Stephen Redfield, violinist, Hsiaopei Lee, violist, Alexander Russakovsky, cellist, along with Jones County Junior College faculty member Theresa Sanchez, pianist.

Redfield performs with the baroque duo Haupt Musik. He has made solo appearances with numerous orchestras and has been featured in chamber music programs throughout the United States and abroad in Canada, Mexico, Cuba, Europe, and the Far East. His major teachers were Dorothy DeLay and Donald Weilerstein. He studied baroque violin with Lucy van Dael in Amsterdam. Redfield performs regularly with Santa Fe ProMusica and the Oregon Bach Festival and Sunriver Festival orchestras. As a concertmaster and soloist with the Victoria Bach Festival, his performances have been produced on CDs and broadcast on National Public Radio. This season he was a soloist with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra and will soon be featured in Michael Daugherty’s "Ladder to the Moon," based on the life and art of Georgia O’Keeffe.

Lee has appeared as a recitalist, chamber musician, and orchestral musician spanning three continents. A native of Taiwan, she received her fundamental musical training in Taipei, completed her master’s degree at Columbia University and holds a doctorate in viola and chamber music performance from the University of Cincinnati, College-Conservatory of Music. Her principle teachers include Masao Kawasaki, Catharine Carroll, Lee Fiser, Larry Fader and Ting-Hui Chen. She was previously a member of the viola faculty of the Starling Strings Project at the University of Cincinnati and the Dayton Philharmonic Orchestra.

Russakovsky studied cello at the Leningrad Conservatory under renowned professors Emmanuel Fishman and Anatoli Nikitin. He received his bachelor’s degree from Jerusalem Rubin Academy, where he studied with Shmuel Magen, and his master’s degree from the Yale School of Music, studying with Aldo Parisot. He holds a doctorate in cello performance from the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied with Geoffrey Rutkowski and Ron Leonard. A founding member of the Jerusalem String Quartet, Russakovky has performed with the group throughout Israel, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, and France, along with numerous solo appearances. Dedicated to playing chamber music, Russakovsky has performed in the Spoleto Festival’s Chamber Music Series in Italy and with the Western Slope Music Festival in Bonefro, Italy. Russakovsky won the Angela and Maurice M. Clairmont Competition in Tel Aviv, the Performing Arts Scholarship Foundation Competition in Santa Barbara, the Charlotte and Alvin Bronstein Scholarship for the Arts from the Ohaj Festival, and the 1999 Career Grant of the Esperia Foundation. His orchestral engagements include Savannah Symphony, Santa Barbara Symphony, New Haven Symphony and Leningrad Philharmonic.

Dr. Sanchez pursues a varied performing career as a soloist and collaborative musician. She has presented recitals in the United States, Canada, and Europe, and has performed as soloist with the Mississippi Symphony Orchestra, the USM Symphony Orchestra (including Southern Nights, a recent recording) and The Wind Ensemble. Playing with the Meridian Symphony Orchestra, she premiered and recorded Carey Smith’s Piano Concerto No. 1. Sanchez was the founding Artistic Administrator for the Vicksburg International Chamber Music Festival and performed with artists including Viennese baritone Benno Schollum, Alexandre Brussilovsky, Nathaniel Rosen, and Gary Gray. She performed from 2003 - 2006 with the International Music Institute in Pontlevoy, France, and joined the Touring Artist Roster of the Mississippi Arts Commission in 2003. She was previously on the music faculty at William Carey University. She was recently featured on WQXR (New York) Radio’s Reflections from the Keyboard and WMSV Radio’s High Notes.

This free concert is open to the public and is sponsored by Tim Lawrence of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC of Jackson.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel. For more information, call 601-649-6374 or visit the Museum’s website at www.LRMA.org.

NASA Free Family art day, April 10

2010-04-09T08:47:00.000-07:00

This Saturday, April 10, LRMA is offering a free family art day from 10 am to 2 pm. The Museum will offer free art activities, and the Stennis Space Center is sending their educators to do a few free science activities. There will be snacks, music, and lots of fun to be had for the whole family. Don't forget to go inside and see the exhibition, NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration - it's a really diverse collection, with a little something for every taste.

Guest Blogger: Lizabeth Brumley

2010-03-31T12:17:00.000-07:00

At the Museum –

Many schools have been on Spring Break recently and families have been visiting the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. As guests sign our register, I learn that children have requested their parents bring them to the Museum or that parents with fond memories of days spent in the library and Museum wanted to bring their children in to share in those experiences. In either case, families are coming to the Museum and both generations are benefitting from their time in the galleries. Children are invited to participate in a scavenger hunt to look for details in the works of art in our permanent collections. This is great way to take some time to examine works more closely and appreciate the beauty and creative techniques of the fine art that surrounds us.

The Museum is often a point of interest for travelers passing through the state. Last year, we had visitors from 41 states and 19 foreign countries. Some have planned their trips to include a visit after reading travel magazines or brochures; some see our billboards and take a welcome break from the road; but many come in because of a recommendation from a friend. Our patrons do a wonderful job of inviting new visitors to the Museum, so that our circle of exposure is ever increasing. There are not too many places that offer so much without charging admission.

We invite you to plan a visit or schedule a group tour to the Museum at any time of the year. Our Museum Guild of Docents and Volunteers are well prepared to educate and enlighten. In addition to our permanent collections, traveling exhibitions are planned years in advance and continuously bring in exciting new exhibits and programming such as the upcoming "NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration" exhibit opening April 8, 2010.

We welcome you to take a little vacation close to home, come in often and bring a friend. As our billboard invites - "Come on in, the art is fine!"

We had some spring break fun...

2010-03-31T12:15:00.001-07:00

At our Spring Break Art Festival (bottom two pictures) and Spring Break Art Break (butterflies!).

Exhibition opening: Thursday, April 8 5:30 pm

2010-03-31T11:41:00.000-07:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art invites the public to attend the opening of "NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration" on Thursday, April 8. The exhibition was organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and the National Aeronautics and Space Administration in cooperation with the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum.

The opening will begin at 5:30 p.m. with a lecture by Tom Crouch, Senior Curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the Smithsonian National Air & Space Museum. A reception will follow at 6:30 p.m. with music provided by The JC Jazz Combo, a 7-piece ensemble under the direction of JCJC instructor Jeff Brown.

Since 1974, Crouch has served both the National Air and Space Museum and the National Museum of American History in a variety of curatorial and administrative posts. He holds a Ph.D. in American history from Ohio State University, an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree from Wright State University, and has won several major writing awards. In the fall of 2000, President Clinton appointed him chairman of the First Flight Centennial Federal Advisory Board.

Crouch is the author or editor of more than a dozen books and many articles for both magazines and scholarly journals. His leading books include "The Bishop’s Boys: A Life of Wilbur and Orville Wright" (1989); "Dream of Wings: American and the Airplane, 1875-1905" (1981); "Eagle Aloft: Two Centuries of the Balloon in America" (1983); and "Wings: A History of Aviation from Kites to the Space Age" (2003).

NASA|ART will be on display at LRMA through June 27 and features nearly five decades of creations by artists as diverse as Andy Warhol, Norman Rockwell, Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, and William Wegman.

Local exhibition sponsors are Cellular South Foundation, Southern Metals Company of Mississippi, The Pruet Companies, RAPAD Drilling and Well Service, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, Jefferson Medical, Merrill Lynch, and Robison Tire Company.

Wes Lee Trio to play at Rogers-Green House benefit

2010-03-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will host its annual event A Taste of Art & Wine on Friday, April 16 from 7 - 10 p.m. at the Rogers-Green House. This year’s event "Fly Me to the Moon" will feature dinner, wine and spirits, and a silent auction which will include artwork by Mississippi artists, as well as wines and wine accessories. Music will be provided by The Wes Lee Trio. Tickets are $45 per person with proceeds from the event going toward the renovation and preservation of the Rogers-Green House and grounds.

Wes Lee is a native of Mobile, Alabama. He has played professional engagements since the age of 14, playing trombone in the genres of jazz, Dixieland, big band swing, and funk. In 1997, Lee formed a band known as Mr. Tone in which he played guitar and was lead vocalist. Mr. Tone and the Blues Funk Revival from Meridian, Mississippi toured the southeast through 2002 and released CDs in 1998 and 2001. Lee moved to Hattiesburg in 2005 where he headlines in The Hub City All Stars and has played guitar for many other artists in the area. He is currently producing a CD of primarily solo acoustic original music. Lee has shared the stage with such international acts as Tab Benoit, Tinsley Ellis, Kenny Neal, Deborah Coleman, Lil Greenwood and Hattiesburg’s own Vasti Jackson.

To purchase tickets contact Liz Brumley at the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, April 14.

Easter Holidays coming up

2010-03-22T09:12:00.001-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will close Sunday, April 4 in observance of the Easter Holiday.

The offices will be closed on Monday, April 5.

The galleries will reopen at 10 a.m. on Tuesday, April 6 at 10 a.m.

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art presents NASA|ART Exhibition

2010-03-19T12:30:00.000-07:00

NASA’s historic triumphs and pioneering legacy are well known to millions, but the inspiring rocket launches, moon landings and planetary explorations also have had an impact on the imaginations of America’s leading artists. As the space agency celebrates its 50th anniversary, the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service (SITES) presents "NASA|ART 50 Years of Exploration," featuring 72 works from those artists.

"NASA|ART" opens April 8 at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art in Laurel, Mississippi and will be on view through June 27. The exhibition is organized by SITES and NASA in cooperation with the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

The exhibition opening will be Thursday, April 8 with a lecture at 5:30 p.m. by Tom Crouch, Exhibition Curator with Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum. A reception will follow from 6:30 - 8 p.m.

"NASA|ART" features nearly five decades of creations by artists as diverse as Annie Leibovitz, Nam June Paik, Norman Rockwell, Andy Warhol and William Wegman. Drawn from the collections of NASA and the National Air and Space Museum, the exhibition includes drawings, photographs, sculpture and other art forms and media. These works – ranging from the illustrative to the abstract – offer unparalleled insight into the private and personal moments, triumphant victories and tragic accidents that form the storied history of NASA.

For example, in Henry Caselli’s "When Thoughts Turned Inward," the artist captures the serene, almost spiritual moment before takeoff, when an astronaut must prepare mentally for a mission. In a Chakaia Booker’s "Remembering Columbia," the tragedy and pain of the lost Space Shuttle Columbia and its crew are transformed in the twisting tire remnants preserved from one of the shuttle’s earlier missions. And Andy Warhol melds Buzz Aldrin’s historic steps on the lunar surface with the unbridled exuberance and flashiness of the 1960s in his neon-lighted "Moonwalk" silkscreen.

The works featured in the exhibit date from the inception of the NASA Art Program in 1962, when NASA administrator James E. Webb asked a group of artists to illustrate, interpret and elucidate the space agency’s missions and projects. Since then, painters, musicians and conceptual artists have been with NASA every step of the way, strolling along launch pads, training in flight simulators, talking with engineers and technicians and visiting with astronauts before and after their flights.

"NASA|ART 50 years of Exploration," a companion book published by Harry N. Abrams in 2008, complements the national traveling exhibition.

NASA was established by Congress in 1958 "to provide for research into the problems of flight within and outside the Earth’s atmosphere, and for other purposes." The agency is headquartered in Washington, D. C., with 10 field centers and other facilities across the nation. NASA’s mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautics research. www.nasa.gov

The National Air and Space Museum, composed of the flagship building on the National Mall in Washington and the Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center in Chantilly, Va., is home to the world’s finest collection of flight artifacts. From aircraft and space vehicles to engines, art and models, the wide array of the museum’s holdings tells the story of the history and technology of air and space exploration. The museum is also a key resource for research into the history, science and technology of aviation and space flight. www.nasm.si.edu

SITES has been sharing the wealth of Smithsonian collections and research programs with millions of people outside Washington, D. C., for more than 50 years. SITES connects Americans to their shared cultural heritage through a wide range of exhibitions about art, science and history, which are shown wherever people live, work and play. Exhibition descriptions and tour schedules are available at www.sites.si.edu.

This exhibition is generously sponsored locally by Cellular South Foundation, Southern Metals Company of Mississippi, The Pruet Companies, RAPAD Drilling and Well Service, Blue Cross Blue Shield of Mississippi, Jefferson Medical, Merrill Lynch, and Robison Tire Company.

Educational programming is partially funded through a Smithsonian Community Grant, funded by MetLife Foundation and administered by the Smithsonian Traveling Exhibition Service, which is used to strengthen the connections between museums nationwide and their communities.

Guest Blogger: Tommie Rodgers

2010-03-18T11:39:00.000-07:00

What Is a Conservator?

The staff at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art receives many calls about various aspects of art. Some callers are interested in finding an appraiser for their artwork, some want to know the best care for their great-grandmother’s photograph, and some are looking for a conservator to repair a damaged or aging piece of artwork. While we do not perform most of those tasks, we can point the caller in the right direction.

Recently I’ve had several questions concerning the care of oil paintings. Museum staff members are trained in the preventive care of works of art, but once damage or age of artwork has become a problem, we call in the “doctors of art.” We don’t know the tricks of their trade because their tricks may be different for every object, especially when dealing with late 20th and 21st century creations.

Conservators usually receive training and hold masters degrees in the visual arts, heritage preservation and/or chemistry. In the early years, conservators were artists who trained as apprentices. In the most recent decades, conservators receive their training collaboratively from museums, conservation labs and universities. There are a few conservation degree granting programs that exist, but most are located in the Northeastern part of the U.S. A conservator spends two to four years of study in a conservation graduate program.

Conservators specialize in their field of interest and those areas may include architecture, books and paper, electronic media, objects, paintings, photographic materials, textiles and wooden artifacts. Conservators are trained to be meticulous and good repair work is usually not spotted in a casual glance. Viewing a painting under a black light can be used to see where in-painting and repairs have been made. A conservator’s knowledge of materials, chemical makeup and potential chemical reactions are paramount in preserving the object.

A conservator’s philosophy is based on the idea of performing the least amount of change with the least amount of chemicals. This idea means the work is to be reversible so if additional work is needed fifty years down the road, another conservator can “undo” the work and treat the artwork in a more chemically-safe way. Combining chemicals is always a learning experience and science plays a huge role in the long-term care of objects.

Some of you may wonder the difference between a conservator and a restorer. Keep in mind that a conservator is an artistically and scientifically trained person who focuses on the longevity of the artwork, the work’s historical context as well as its visual appearance.

A restorer is someone concerned only with the visual aspects. A restorer generally has no training in the field other than as a hobby. An artist is also not a conservator and has no more knowledge of the materials than you and I.

Professional conservators should be members of organizations such as the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works, in which there are strict ethical standards they must agree to uphold. A qualified conservator will be glad to provide you with a list of clients they have worked for as well their educational experience.

There are very few qualified conservators in our region, let alone in the state of Mississippi. I know of one qualified painting conservator who has recently moved from New Orleans, LA to Columbia, MS. We have worked with object conservators and paper conservators but must travel to their locations in Nashville, TN and New Orleans, LA.

So if you are looking for the right person, you can browse locations and specialties of conservators on the website of the American Institute for Conservation of Historic and Artistic Works (www.conservation-us.org). Conservators work by appointment and charge a consulting fee for large projects.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at 565 North Fifth Avenue and is open Tuesdays - Saturdays, 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. and on Sundays from 1-4 p.m. The Museum is closed on Mondays. For additional information, call 601-649-6374 or view the museum’s website at www.LRMA.org.

Tommie Rodgers is the registrar at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

A Taste of Art & Wine: April 16

2010-03-17T09:10:00.000-07:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will host its annual event A Taste of Art & Wine to benefit the Rogers-Green House on Friday, April 16 from 7 - 10 p.m. at the Rogers-Green House.

This year’s event, Fly Me to the Moon, will feature dinner, wine and spirits, and a silent auction which will include artwork by Mississippi artists, as well as wines and wine accessories. Music will be provided by The Wes Lee Trio. Tickets are $45 per person with proceeds from the event going toward the renovation and preservation of the house and grounds.

Built in 1903 by Mr. and Mrs. W. B. Rogers, the Rogers-Green House was the childhood home of Lauren Eastman Rogers and was donated to the Eastman Memorial Foundation by Mr. and Mrs. Gardiner Green, Sr. The house has been occupied by the Museum since 2003, and is utilized for museum offices and activities and as a rental facility for private events and social gatherings.

A Taste of Art & Wine is chaired by LRMA Guild member Mary Anne Sumrall. The event is generously supported by Silver Sponsors Jones County Medical Supplies and Trustmark Bank, and Bronze Sponsors The Essmueller Company, Mr. and Mrs. Gary Sauls, Larry J. Sumrall Contractors, Inc., Dr. and Mrs. Aremmia Tanious, and Thermo-Kool. The event is also sponsored by E. & J. Gallo Winery and the LRMA Guild of Docents and Volunteers.

To purchase tickets contact Liz Brumley at the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org by Wednesday, April 14.

Art Talk, March 18: Randy Meador

2010-03-04T09:02:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will present Art Talk on Thursday, March 18 at noon in the Lower Level Lecture Hall. Randy Meador will present "Rediscovering the Lost Spaces of Laurel - The City Beautiful."

Meador’s talk will center on Laurel’s rich history of projects based on values that reflect the city’s special qualities, the intrinsic values that have made Laurel vibrant, and some successful examples of rediscovery. The presentation will also highlight initiatives that will turn new ideas for rediscovery into reality with a language that speaks of art and history.

Meador is a native of Jones County where he lives with wife, Cindy. He holds a B. S. Degree in Civil Engineering from Mississippi State University. He has worked for the past 25 years as an engineering and planning consultant in the Pine Belt Region and for his home town of Laurel.

Meador is Vice-President of Neel-Schaffer and has been principally involved in the development of the firm’s south Mississippi region. He is a 1995 graduate of Leadership Mississippi. He was recognized that same year for his contributions to the economic progress of the Pine Belt Region and the state by being named to the Mississippi Business Journal’s "Top 40 Under 40." Meador says "the reward for an engineer and planner is to see the positive impacts of our projects to the communities in which we live and work and to see the difference those projects make in the lives of people."

Art Talk, sponsored by West Quality Food Services, Inc., is free and open to the public. Guests are invited to use the North Garden Entrance and bring a sack lunch. Desserts and beverages will be provided. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the website www.LRMA.org.

Guest Blogger: Angie King

2010-03-03T13:36:00.000-08:00

Springtime Fun at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art

By Angie King, LRMA Outreach Education Coordinator

We in the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art education department, are getting ready for spring! There will be several activities for families and children during Spring Break week. The LRMA Spring Break Festival will be held on the front lawn of the Museum on Tuesday, March 16 from 1 until 3 p.m. This year’s festival will feature live animals from the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science in Jackson. Art projects will center around a "nature" theme using common household items. The various projects will include solar prints, a masking tape mosaic, and playing card paintings, as well as a table with ideas for art projects that can be made at home out of recycled materials. This event will be a great way to entertain the kids for free during Spring Break.

During Spring Break week, the Museum also offers a fun art class for children ages K5 through 6th grade. Spring Break Art Break will be held for three days, Wednesday, March 17 through Friday, March 19. Classes will be held from 10 a.m. until noon for children ages K5 to 3rd grade and 2 to 4 p.m. for 4th through 6th graders. Students will create projects in a variety of media based on the LRMA permanent collection. The cost is $35 for Museum members, and $45 for non-members. Please contact the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org to make your reservations now, as space is limited. Reservations will only be held with payment.

Randy Meador of Neel-Schaffer, will speak at Art Talk on "Rediscovering the Lost Spaces of Laurel, " at noon on Thursday, March 18. Wildlife photographer Steven Kirkpatrick will be the featured speaker on Earth Day, April 22. Art Talk is an exciting serious held monthly in the spring and fall that features a wide variety of speakers on artistic topics. Attendees are encouraged to bring a lunch to enjoy while listening to a stimulating lecture. Art Talk is free and no reservation is required.

There will be a lot happening this spring at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. Even if you cannot make it to one of these great events, stop by to view our permanent collections and temporary exhibitions any time during regular operating hours which are Tuesday through Saturday from 10 a.m. - 4:45 p.m. or on Sundays from 1 - 4 p.m. Admission is always free and there is something here for everyone.

2010 Art Fair at the LRMA

2010-03-03T13:11:00.000-08:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art held a reception to honor the winners of its second Art Fair on Tuesday, March 2 in the Museum Lobby.

First place was awarded to Mailea Halstead with second place going to Justin DeBoxtel and Waymon Moore claiming third place. All three winning entries were students at South Jones High School under the instruction of art teacher Sharon Howard.

For further information on LRMA Art Fair contact the Museum at 601.649.6374 or info@LRMA.org.

LRMA Outreach Education Coordinator Angie King presents a check to the 2010 LRMA Art Fair winner Mailea Halstead of South Jones High School.

front: Mailea Halstead (1st place) Sharon Howard, South Jones High School art teacher, back: Waymon Moore (3rd place) and Justin DeBoxtel (2nd place).

Spring Break fun for the kids!

2010-02-26T08:13:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art will hold its third annual Spring Break Festival on Tuesday, March 16 from 1 - 3 p.m. on the museum's front lawn. The Mississippi Museum of Natural Science will showcase a variety of reptiles and other animals, and music will be provided for the event by Mark Brown. Art activities include solar prints, masking tape mosaics, playing card paintings, and more. The festival is free and open to the public and intended for the whole family.

The Museum will also hold its annual "Spring Break Art Break" classes March 17 - 19 in the Museum annex. The schedule will be 10 a.m. until noon for K5 through third grade and 2 until 4 p.m. for fourth through sixth graders. Participants will create multi-media crafts inspired by the LRMA collection. Cost is $35 per child for LRMA members and $45 for non-members. As space is limited, reservations will only be held with payment. To reserve a space contact the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art at 601-649-6374 or info@LRMA.org.

Guest Blogger: Allyn Boone

2010-02-16T09:09:00.000-08:00

In 1903, Nina and Wallace Rogers built an elegant redwood home in the Prairie style of architecture on Laurel’s beautiful Fifth Avenue. There they raised their son, Lauren, and participated in the life of the community, managing one of the town’s lumber companies and entertaining friends and business associates in their well-appointed home.

Upon Lauren’s untimely death at the age of 23, his parents and grandparents created the Eastman Memorial Foundation to operate a museum and library for the town. As a result, the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art opened in 1923 across the street from the Rogers house, and the Museum continues to serve as the cultural heart of the city of Laurel.

In 1950, the Rogers house passed to Gardiner Green, Sr., who was Lauren’s second cousin, and his wife, Eleanor. In 2003, the house became the property of the Eastman Memorial Foundation through a generous bequest from the Greens, who had been longtime supporters of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and its programs.

Listed on the National Register of Historic Places as a pivotal structure in the Laurel Historic District, the Rogers-Green House is highly significant in terms of its age and its architecture. A rare example in Laurel of the Prairie style, the house stands as one of the primary examples of the Belle Epoch period. Outstanding features include original Tiffany light fixtures and extensive leaded glass windows.

The Rogers-Green House has become an indispensable part of the community. Five museum offices are situated on the second floor of the building, and LRMA utilizes the main level and grounds for numerous Museum events.

Additionally, the house has become a popular site for a wide variety of community celebrations including parties, weddings and receptions. The rental income from these festive occasions helps offset the expense of operating and maintaining the 7,000 square-foot structure, and the community enjoys the opportunity to utilize the house for special occasions.

Initial renovations to the house were funded by a Mississippi Arts Commission Building Fund for the Arts grant and contributions from generous individuals in Laurel and as far away as San Francisco and New York City. The common denominators among these donors were a connection to Laurel, a love of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, and an appreciation of this fine old building.

Thanks to the donors’ generosity, the Rogers-Green House is the center of activities ranging from LRMA planning and administration to festive parties and elegant receptions. As we look to the future, we envision renovating a small guest cottage on the grounds for LRMA overnight guests including lecturers and artists-in-residence. Other needs include roofing improvements for the Carriage House Studio and an endowment fund for future Rogers-Green House repairs.

A Taste of Art & Wine on Friday, April 16, at the Rogers-Green House will provides an opportunity to have fun and raise money for the Rogers-Green House. The annual event is presented by the LRMA Guild of Docents & Volunteers and features gourmet food and wine, a silent auction, and music and dancing. Area businesses and individuals have the opportunity to become sponsors for the event and be recognized on the invitation and in other publicity.

Later this year, we plan to unveil a plaque that will list the generous individuals and businesses who helped us restore and renovate the Rogers-Green House for LRMA and the community. Categories range from the 1903 Society for gifts of $1,903 to the Redwood Society for gifts of $50,000 or more. For more information about these and other giving opportunities, please call George Bassi or Allyn Boone at the Museum, 601-649-6374.

Allyn Boone is Director of Development at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Snow day!

2010-02-11T13:13:00.000-08:00

On Friday, February 12 we will be closed due to inclement weather.

Garden Lecture Thursday, February 11

2010-02-01T08:29:00.000-08:00

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the Laurel Garden Club will present Gardening Through the Seasons by Dr. William E. Barrick, Executive Director of Bellingrath Gardens on Thursday, Feb. 11 at 10:30 a.m. at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Gardening Through the Seasons will focus on creating landscape displays that provide color throughout the seasons of the year using examples from Bellingrath Gardens and Home, well known for its imaginative and creative use of annuals, tropicals, and perennials.

Dr. Barrick received BS and MS degrees from Auburn University and a PhD in Landscape Horticulture from Michigan State University. Since 1999, he has served as the Executive Director of Bellingrath Gardens and Home, located in Theodore, Alabama. He was Executive Vice-President and Director of Gardens in Callaway Gardens in Pine Mountain, Georgia, for almost 20 years before going to Bellingrath. Dr. Barrick is a past President of the American Association of Botanical Gardens and Arboreta, past Chairman of the American Horticultural Society, and a recipient of the Arthur Hoyt Scott Medal.

The lecture will be held in LRMA’s American Gallery. Following the lecture, lunch will be served at the Rogers-Green House which is located across the street from the Museum. Tickets are $35 per person and include lunch. Seating is limited. For reservations contact LRMA at 601-649-6374 or info@LRMA.org.

Gardening Through the Seasons is presented by Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and the Laurel Garden Club, a member of The Garden Club of America.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in Historic Downtown Laurel. The Laurel Garden Club is a member of The Garden Club of America.

Top picture:
Bellingrath Gardens: The Rose Garden in May

Bottom picture:
Bellingrath Gardens: The Mirror Pool

For more information on Bellingrath Gardens, visit their website at www.Bellingrath.org

At the Museum: A Recent Acquisition

2010-01-29T13:59:00.000-08:00

The current exhibition at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is Recent Acquisitions: 2004-2009, featuring works added to the permanent collection through both gift and purchase. Although the works were all added to the Museum’s collection in the 21st century, they are not all contemporary works of art. We have added American, European, Native American, and Japanese works to the collection, although the majority are American paintings and works on paper.

One of our major purchases of the last few years is a small painting called Concord Grapes (1903) by the American painter John Frederick Peto. Although small in stature, the painting has a strong presence and fills an important gap in our collection. Works in our American Gallery fit into one of four major categories: landscape, portraiture, still life, or genre (scenes of everyday life). A still life painting consists of objects which, obviously, lack the ability to move (such as jugs, fruit, crockery, flowers, books, and candles, for example). These objects are carefully chosen and grouped into a composition for artistic purposes. The still life is not meant to depict an accidental scene or a snapshot of real life, in other words.

Although several still life paintings were already in the collection, until recently we did not have an important work in the late 19th-century “trompe l’oeil” tradition. “Trompe l’oeil” means “to trick the eye”, and in painting refers to works which are highly detailed and carefully finished. Peto was one of a few major painters of the style in America, along with William Harnett and Jefferson David Chalfant. Peto was a native of Philadelphia, and trained at the Pennsylania Academy of the Fine Arts. However, after he married, he decided to move out of the mainstream of American art and live much of his adult life in Island Heights, New Jersey. There he produced a steady stream of still life paintings, punctuated by the occasional landscape.

Because of his isolation from city life and the fact that his career was cut short by Bright’s Disease at age 53, Peto’s work was considered secondary to Harnett’s for several decades. In fact, a number of his pictures were attributed to Harnett at one time. Only beginning in the 1950s did scholars manage to untangle the authorship and identify which works were by Peto and which by Harnett. Since then Peto’s reputation has steadily increased. His works are more tonal, a bit more moody and color-infused than Harnett’s, whereas Harnett tended to a crystalline finish and detail and a bit more flash.

A student of history and art history, Peto was almost certainly aware of one of the earliest stories about a painter in the Western world, that of Zeuxis. Zeuxis was a Greek painter during the Classical era (about 2500 years ago) who made a painting of grapes was so real-looking that, when it was unveiled, a bird flew down out of the sky and tried to peck at it. Peto’s grapes, however, are Concord grapes, a unique American grape developed in 1849. Peto’s still life, then, both evokes the European origins of oil painting and asserts its American identity apart from that history.

Recent Acquisitions: 2004-2009 is on exhibit in the Lower Level Galleries through March 24, 2010. The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of 5th Avenue and 7th Street in historic downtown Laurel. The Museum is open Tuesday to Saturday from 10:00 am to 4:45 pm , and on Sundays from 1 pm to 4 pm. For more information call 601-649-6374 or visit us on the web at www.LRMA.org

Jill R. Chancey, PhD is curator of the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Holiday Art Class later this week

2009-12-14T09:23:00.001-08:00

This class is not yet full, but it's filling up quickly. Join us for our annual holiday art class:

Thursday, December 17 3:30 - 5 p.m. (Grades K - 6th) Museum Annex

Children will make funky soda can angels, amazing pop-up holiday cards, and pretty painted ornaments.

Cost for this class is $15 for LRMA members, and $20 for non-members.

Call us at 601-649-6374 to sign your little artist up!

Holiday Hours

2009-12-10T14:44:00.000-08:00

The Museum will be closed for the holidays on:

December 24, 25, and 31

and

January 1

Guest Blogger: Holly Green

2009-12-10T14:43:00.000-08:00

At the Museum

With the arrival of the holidays, you may find yourself looking for a place to take respite from the hustle and bustle of activity that accompanies this very busy time of year. You may also be looking for ways to entertain your out-of-town guests. The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, in historic downtown Laurel, is perfect for both.

Whether you or your guests enjoy American, European or Asian art, Native American basketry, English silver, or have more modern tastes, there is something for everyone at LRMA.

In the Lower Level Galleries beginning December 15, there will be an exhibition pulled from our very own vaults. Recent Acquisitions: 2004 - 2009 celebrates the additions to the LRMA collection made possible by the generous support of the community. Included in the exhibition are important works by Mississippi artists William Dunlap and Ethel Wright Mohamed; two baskets by Native American weaver Pat Courtney Gold, and the first addition to the Japanese Ukiyo-e print collection in many decades, The Dragon King’s Palace (1858), a triptych by Utagawa Kuniyoshi.

As it is the Christmas season, make sure you step into the Reading Room to view the beautifully decorated Christmas tree and the exquisite crèche at its base. These sixteen figures are made of dense cedar and were carved by an elderly Mayan Indian living in the hills of south central Guatemala. They were commissioned and purchased, piece by piece, from 1980 - 1981 by LRMA patron Jean Chisholm Lindsey, who then donated them to the Museum.

In the LRMA Library, you can find books on most any artist or art form imaginable. Take a moment to browse the shelves for something that peaks your artistic interest, find a quiet place, and spend an afternoon reading.

The staff at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art appreciates your patronage and participation over the past year and welcomes you to visit your Museum and take part in the exciting events and educational arts programs in 2010. We wish you and yours a beautiful holiday season and a healthy, happy New Year!

The Museum is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel and is open 10:00 a.m. until 4:45 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 1:00 until 4:00 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is free. For more information, call LRMA at 601.649.6374 or visit the Museum’s website, www.LRMA.org.

- Holly Green is the Director of Marketing at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.

Guest Blogger: George Bassi

2009-11-12T13:38:00.000-08:00

At the Museum

by George Bassi, Director

As with most things in our lives, we tend to divide up the calendar year based on sporting activities, school, holidays and family events. For us here at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art, our year always includes the excitement in November and early December of planning the annual museum gala.

LRMA will celebrate the sights, sounds and tastes of New Orleans at our annual black-tie gala on Saturday, December 5. Gala Chairmen Deborah and David Ratcliff promise a memorable evening of delicious food, lively music, and fabulous decorations to raise money for the Museum’s education and exhibition programs.

Highlighting the evening will be the Live Auction under the leadership of chairmen Mary Ella and Clay Johnson. Bidders will have the opportunity to purchase artwork by Bill Dunlap, Lucy Mazzaferro, Greg Gustafson, Patterson Barnes and Ginny Futvoye. The Live Auction also features two exciting week-long trips to the private residences of Lessley and Bobby Hynson in Ireland and Sara and John Hendrickson in Nantucket. Jewelry will include a stunning Judith Ripka gold and diamond cross necklace and an exquisite multi-colored string of pearls. Completing the Live auction is a beautiful table designed and crafted by Walter Bailey.

Pam and Jack Ward are serving as Silent Auction chairmen and their committee of 13 couples is gathering more than 100 auction items in six categories. Included are vacations, private dinners, jewelry, artwork, antiques and just about anything else on your Christmas list.

The gala is the museum’s primary fundraising event, raising almost 15% of our annual operating budget in this one night. But it is not all business– this is a night to laissez les bons temps rouler! The evening features a gourmet dinner inspired by New Orleans cuisine and dancing with the music of The Triple Lindy, featuring Laurel native Wes Brooks. Be on the lookout for mimes, ostrich plumes, a second-line and maybe even Chris Owens.

The fun begins with the annual Preview Party on Thursday, December 3. This event is sponsored by the LRMA Guild of Docents and Volunteers and highlights the many auction items up for bid. Katie Sullivan is serving as chair of this event, and the Guild will prepare a menu of delicious Big Easy treats to start the bidding.

Of course, an event of this magnitude takes a host of volunteers, and LRMA is fortunate to have great committee chairmen helping us out. Included are Jo Lynn McLeod as Decorations Chair, Ann Ellis and Betty Harper as Auction Display Chairs, and Diane Thames as Food and Beverage Chair.

Tickets are now on sale for this December 5 event, and you can call the Museum at 601-649-6374 for more information.

Sunday Concert Series: November 15

2009-11-09T13:54:00.000-08:00

Lauren Rogers Museum of Art and The University of Southern Mississippi Symphony Orchestra present the second installment of their 2009-2010 Sunday Concert Series on Sunday, November 15 at 3 p.m. in the LRMA American Gallery. Harpist Kimberly Houser along with guest flutist Katherine Kemler will perform music by Godefroid, Debussy, Houser, Tournier, and Piazzola in a program titled “Dances with Harp.”

Kimberly Houser has performed on the harp since she was eight years old. She began her study in Portland, Oregon, performing her first full recitals and freelancing in high school. She received her Bachelors, Masters and Doctoral degrees from the University of Arizona while on full scholarship. Houser continued her study under Catherine Michel, principal harpist of the Paris Opera. She has performed at The World Harp Congress, The American Harp Society Convention, and the Soka City International Festival in Japan. She has toured Mexico, Japan, Prague, and Puerto Rico. Houser spent three years as principal harpist with the Billings Symphony in Billings, Montana while she taught both privately and through Montana State University. She has served as principal harp for the Columbia Symphony in Portland, Oregon and was on faculty at Clark College in Vancouver, Washington, where she taught music theory, history and appreciation. Her first solo CD, Pure Harp, was reviewed in the October/November 2006 issue of Fanfare Magazine. She is a Professional-in-Residence at Louisiana State University.

Katherine Kemler is Professor of Flute at Louisiana State University, flutist with the Timm Wind Quintet, and a regular visiting teacher at the Oxford Flute Summer School in England. A graduate of Oberlin, she received her Master of Music and D.M.A. degrees from State University of New York at Stony Brook. Dr. Kemler has taught master classes and performed solo recitals at the Shanghai Conservatory of Music in China, Hong Kong Academy of the Performing Arts, Beijing Concert Hall and taught master classes at the Central Conservatory of Music in Beijing. In 2006, she was a guest artist at the Slovenian Flute Festival and in the summer of 2007 she performed and taught at the Festiv'Academies in France. She was featured on the cover of Flute Talk Magazine in December of 2006 and also on the cover of the Flutist Quarterly, the official magazine of the NFA, in 2003. Dr. Kemler has appeared as soloist with the British Chamber Orchestra in London's Queen Elizabeth Hall, and with the Orchestra Medicea Laurenziana throughout Italy. She made solo broadcasts on BBC Radio 3 and National Public Radio and has recorded CDs with Centaur Records, Orion, and Opus One labels.

This Sunday Concert is sponsored by Tim Lawrence of Morgan Stanley Smith Barney, LLC in Jackson and is free and open to the public.

The Lauren Rogers Museum of Art is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in historic downtown Laurel. For more information, call 601-649-6374 or visit the Museum’s website at www.LRMA.org.

Fourth Grade Tours

2009-11-06T12:17:00.000-08:00

On October 20th and 22nd, about 800 fourth-graders visited the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art. As part of their unit on Native American history, they toured our Basket Gallery; learned about the three kinds of weaving (coiling, twining, and plaiting) and handled baskets of each type; did several hands-on art activities; watched Choctaw dancing; and saw a demonstration of Choctaw rivercane weaving. The weather held out, so we were able to use the front lawn for the activities and the demonstrations, and a lot of the classes went to Gardiner Park (behind the museum) to enjoy a picnic lunch.

Reminder: Moe Brooker exhibition closes November 8!

2009-11-05T08:14:00.000-08:00

This Sunday is your last chance to view the exhibition Moe Brooker: Carelessly Exact.

The exhibition Eudora Welty in New York will be closing soon after, on Sunday, November 15. From now until then, you may find one section of the Welty show has been taken down. This is because our construction project is causing one wall of that gallery to vibrate on occasion, and on those days we have to take those pictures down. We apologize for any inconvenience.

Field Trip to Stennis Space Center

2009-11-04T08:39:00.000-08:00

This week the LRMA staff took a field trip to Stennis Space Center in Southwest Mississippi. We are gearing up for the exhibit NASA|ART: 50 Years of Exploration, featuring 65 artworks commissioned by NASA over the last fifty years, which will open on April 8, 2010. The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian Institution Traveling Exhibition Service and NASA in cooperation with the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

We started with a driving tour of the immense facility, which in addition to testing rocket and shuttle engines, is host to a number of other federal agencies and contractors. We saw NOAA, weather buoys, and the enormous test stands, and more. Stennis even has its own daycare, mini-mart, gas station, fire station, medical clinic, and several cafeterias to serve its thousands of employees.

We then visited the Stennisphere, a museum/hands-on activity center which presents the history of the area, the space center, the shuttle, and more. Several members of the staff did a fine job of landing...er, *crashing* the space shuttle in the simulator.

George and other members of the staff enjoyed the space suit:

We were hoping they had an extra space suit to lend us for photo ops, but alas, they do not.

We were all impressed by the enormous scale of the engines tested at the center:

And, finally, we had a great meeting with members of the Education, Outreach, and Public Affairs staff, who have a lot of great programming ideas for us. We have big plans for the programming around this exhibition, and we are looking forward to partnering with the folks at the Stennis Space Center.

Guest Blogger: Lizabeth Brumley

2009-11-04T07:37:00.001-08:00

At the Museum –

Halloween is now behind us and it’s time to begin thinking about the holiday season. If you are looking for unique gifts, stop by the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art Gift Shop where we have a wide selection of gifts for young and old. For the children we have books and educational games and toys. Browse our offerings of Mississippi-crafted works including hand-turned pens by Dr. Steven Nowicki, hand-blown glass from Sweetwater Studio, and hand-painted ceramic birds from Wolfe Studio, as well as beautifully woven Choctaw baskets. We also carry a collection of stationery items and books both of local and artistic interest. New items are arriving daily in anticipation of the holiday season. We welcome you to stop by and shop in the Gift Shop of Mississippi’s first art museum surrounded by beauty, history, and fine art. Remember to mention your LRMA membership when making purchases at the Museum Gift Shop to receive a discount on your selections.

For a special treat, join us at our annual Shop Open House on November 24^th from 10 am to 5 p.m. Come shop and enjoy special discounts, free gift wrapping and delicious refreshments provided by the Museum’s Guild of Docents and Volunteers. From 10 a.m. until noon, local writer Karen Rasberry will be signing copies of her new collection of short stories, Travelers in Search of Vacancy. Jewelry maker Robbin Lee will also be returning for a trunk show of her freshwater pearl and sterling silver jewelry also between 10 a.m. and noon. The ever-popular chef and author Robert St. John will be on hand from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m.to sign copies of his latest book entitled Dispatches from My South.

The LRMA Gift Shop is now a consignment vendor for Mississippi Magazine which features articles and recipes from around the state. Come in and get your copy today.

The Museum is located at the corner of Fifth Avenue and Seventh Street in Historic Downtown Laurel. For more information about the Museum and Gift Shop, call 601-649-6374 ir visit the Museum website at www.LRMA.org.

###

Lizabeth Brumley is Shop Manager and Visitor Services Coordinator at the Lauren Rogers Museum of Art.