Roswell Museum

City Manager

Joe Neeb

Executive Director

Caroline Brooks

Roswell Museum

2021 Overview. . .

Continuing from 2020, the Museum maintained part-time hours Tuesday through Friday, 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. along with reduced staffing and budget through the first half of 2021.

After approval to refill vacant positions, the Museum expanded its hours and opened full-time on Saturday, June 12, 10 am to 6 pm daily.

Alongside state health restrictions, much of the museum’s normal programming was on hold or severely modified in the first half of the year and offerings were slowly reintroduced as the year continued.

RMAC installs a new exhibit (top) Pieces from the Artisan Market (bottom)

Exhibitions. . .

In 2021, owing to reduced visitors and a limited budget, exhibitions concentrated on New Mexico artists and in-house and local opportunities.

Lucky Escape: The Wild World of William Goodman, June 12, 2021 - January 2, 2022

A retrospective exhibition showcasing more than five decades of sculpture, drawing, painting and prints by the versatile and imaginative Tinnie, New Mexico, artist William Goodman (b. Wimbledon, England). Included Second Saturday reception and hands-on art activity inspired by artist’s work.

Conversations: Artworks in Dialogue, July 2 - November 21, 2021

On loan from The Wheelwright Museum of the American Indian, Santa Fe, Conversations highlights pieces from the collection of Daniel E. Prall, a dedicated volunteer and longtime supporter of the Wheelwright Museum. His Native American collection included 320 major artworks, with emphasis on painting, drawing, pottery, and sculpture. Included Second Saturday hands-on art activity inspired by animal iconography in works.

Opened Full-Time in June 146 Donations from Donors and Artists

Roswell Artist-in-Residence. . .

Justin Richel – A Window, A Door, A Ladder, January 8 - February 19, 2021

With an interest in simulacra and trickster mythologies, Justin Richel’s work explored the art and artifice inherent in the painting medium through the combined practice of sculpture and painting.

Alia Ali – Refracted Futures, March 5 - April 16, 2021

Alia Ali is a Yemeni-Bosnian-US multimedia artist whose work probes both systematic erasure and cultural preservation in the context of the crisis in Yemen and its diaspora.

Masha Sha – Unsaid, April 30 - June 11, 2021

As a Russian artist living in the United States, Masha is engaged in a visual relationship with language that involves excavating meanings from words and in the creation of large-scale graphite drawings.

Chen Wang – In the Woods, June 25 - August 8, 2021

Chen (b. Hohhot, China) is a multidisciplinary artist who incorporates costumed performance, sound engineering, and 3D game design to create fictional dreamscapes in video installations. In the Woods draws upon the artist’s anxiety to the (im)possibility of the future during the COVID-19 pandemic using a dark woods as a metaphor to mimic a chaotic present- day society combined with a narrative exploring power structures, politics, race and gender.

Mikayla Patton – Visitation, September 4 - October 10, 2021

Mikayla Patton is a Oglala Lakota, mixed-media artist from the Pine Ridge Reservation of South Dakota. In Visitation, she paired a Lakota dress from the Aston Collection with vessels made of handmade paper, acrylic, porcupine quills, deer lace, and pigments adorned with Lakota motifs of power.

Terri Roland - Resonance, October 23, 2021 - January 2, 2022

Terri is a New Mexico artist whose abstract paintings are concerned with the places where land and sky meet. She reduces a painting to its three most elemental colors and shapes to best honor the essence of a place in time. Exhibition received write-up in New Mexico Magazine.

Gestures and Geometry: Abstract Paintings and Prints by Phillis Ideal, September 11 - November 21, 2021

Santa Fe artist Phillis Ideal’s current paintings juxtapose expansive gestural space and tightly packed collage areas that reflect growing up among the open spaces of the desert combined with living in the crowded urban energy of New York. Included Second Saturday reception and hands-on art activity inspired by artist’s work.

Mikayla Patton showcasing her work

The Museum loaned a Raymond Jonson print to the Crocker Art Museum for the exhibition Another World: The Transcendental Painting Group. The work is part of a national tour, which includes stops at the Philbrook Museum of Art and the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and concludes in spring 2023.

With the approval of the Board of Trustees, the Museum accepted 146 donations total by the following donors and artists:

Donations. . .

• Susan and David Hill donated 19 artworks by New

Mexico artists Steve Catron (5), Eugene Newmann (5),

Donald Fabricant, Martin Horowitz, Aaron Karp, Sam

Scott (5), and Valerie Nielsen.

• Art Rosenberg donated 14 artworks by New Mexico artists Janet Lippincott (2), Elen Feinberg, Fritz

Scholder (2), Garo Z. Antreasian, Frank McCulloch (2),

Robert Ellis, Nick Abdalla, John Depuy, Clinton Adams,

Harry Nadler, and Helen Sturges.

• Roxanne Gunter donated 89 paintings, drawings and prints by Santa Fe artist Agnes Tait, as well as Randall

Davey (3), Roderick Meade, F. Dosamantes, Jerry

West, Ben Ortega, and Frank Mechau (2).

• Ken Terry and Denise Betesh donated three works by artist Gendron Jensen.

• The Estate of Brinkman Randle donated a Peter

Rogers painting.

• Rachel Stevens donated one of her outdoor sculptures, presently located on the north side of the Museum campus.

• Jean M. Glover, Steven M. Glover and Sally J. Cammon donated a work by Sydney Redfield.

• Nancy Steen Adams donated a print by her late husband Ben Q. Adams and two of her own prints.

• David Wynkoop donated six Peter Hurd sketches.

Terri Roland’s Art during the exhibition (top) and her lecture (below)

2021 Revenue and Contributed Funds Total: $543,987

Classes, Programs and Events. . .

Chalk the Walk:

In lieu of an annual festival this year, the Museum

held a standalone sidewalk chalk drawing

activity, Chalk the Walk, in front of the Museum during October’s Second Saturday on October 9. The Museum has presented these popular chalk contests periodically since 2006.

Second Saturdays:

The largest addition to 2021’s programming was the reintroduction of Second Saturdays sponsored by the RMAC Foundation. Second Saturdays

began with the newly expanded hours on June

12, 2021 and includes a family-friendly hands-on activity for all ages from 10 am to 1 pm, a free 11 am planetarium show, and free admission all day for Roswell Residents.

Materials were given away to allow for social distancing of supplies and the ability for participants to do the activities at home.

Classes:

Began with small groups of adult students for open studio clay sessions in April 2021, and later expanded to include traditionally taught classes for both adults and children in the fall. Yoga transitioned from a virtual offering back to in-person in the galleries. The

fall also introduced a sketching and

hiking class and the return of Gratton Workshops with a weekend workshop taught by esteemed Hopi Choctaw printmaker, painter, and educator Linda Lomahaftewa.

Family After Hours:

A free evening of hands-on visual and performing arts activities presented by RISD’s Arts Connect staff at the Roswell

Museum, was held on Thursday, October 28 in the Museum’s courtyard and on 11th Street. Geared towards grades K – 6, activity stations included making kinetic sculptures, marble paintings, homemade wind chimes, and jingle hand bells.

Roswell Museum Holiday Artisan Market:

This was introduced as a new event in 2021. The Market was a juried contemporary art and craft show and sale held at the Museum December 3-18 presented in partnership with the RMAC Foundation and the Pecos Valley Potters Guild.

Some memberships lapsed during the pandemic due to the extended closure, limited in-person offerings and personal financial restrictions. The campaign efforts ultimately brought in several new members,

making up for the losses and the same number of memberships, 399 memberships with 676 members, closed the year as had started.

As a follow-up on the City’s citywide re-branding campaign, the Museum worked with the Public Affairs department to develop a new museum logo and brand that fit within the City’s branding while recognizing the distinctive qualities of the Museum and its audiences.

Terri Roland’s lecture

Family Art Night

Gratton Workshop

676 Members by the end of 2021

The new logo and brand were launched at a reception on November 15.

The New Mexico Department of Tourism re-routed tourism dollars to capital projects in rural cities during COVID in order to help smaller cities better prepare for reopening after the pandemic. The request, which was approved by the governor on April 9, 2021 and financially administered on September 23, 2021, will provide $340,000 toward museum improvements by helping relocate the Museum Store to the front of the building. The new store format will focus on promoting the work of local and regional artists along with items related to the collections and exhibitions. This is the first phase of a larger project which also includes development of a family enrichment gallery and a lobby renovation.