FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE (9/99)
Contact: Diane Dufilho, Director Meadows Museum of Art (318) 869-5169
SHREVEPORT, LA -- The Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College of Louisiana received funds totaling $48,401 from the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier, The Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities and the Louisiana Division of the Arts, recently. These awarded funds are specified for three separate area projects to be completed during the 1999-2000 season.
The Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier awarded $5,000 to Meadows in support of MMARC, the Meadows Museum of Art Resource Center. Support for the project will enable the Museum to develop a collection of objects of museological quality for the teaching of Shreveport-Bossier students. As part of an educational outreach project, objects contained within the teaching collection will be made available to teachers on a circulating basis for travel to classrooms in January, 2000. Grant monies will also partially fund the continuing development of teacher-training workshops on an exhibition-by-exhibition basis.
The award was presented to Diane G. Dufilho, director of the Meadows Museum of Art, by Dr. Dorothy Gwin, director of the Community Foundation of Shreveport-Bossier. The presentation occurred on Wednesday, July 20, at the board orientation for the Shreveport Art Guild, Friends of the Meadows Museum. Following her presentation, Dr. Gwin addressed the audience on the positive impact of bequests on the Shreveport-Bossier community.
A second grant totaling $37,872 has been awarded to the Meadows Museum by the Louisiana Endowment for the Humanities. The award will fund the curation, mounting and production of a full-color catalogue of a retrospective exhibition of the works of North Louisiana artist Clyde Connell. The exhibition, Clyde Connell: Daughter of the Bayou, is scheduled for August through November, 2000, and is the third in the Museum's exhibition series Celebrating the Creativity of Louisiana's Women. The special, full-color catalogue of the exhibition will include a 4,000-word introduction authored by renowned 20th century American critic, Lucy Lippard. Lippard previously visited Shreveport, where she met with a group of local women artists, including Connell. The artists raised monies in order for Judy Chicago, Lippard and other luminaries of the art world to visit Shreveport, in an attempt to bring outside influences to the Ark-La-Tex region. Lippard will visit Shreveport again during the fall of 2000 at the time of the Connell exhibit.
Also as part of Celebrating the Creativity of Louisiana's Women, the Meadows Museum will host Materials Girl, by Lynda Benglis, scheduled for March 12 through June 15, 2000. The Louisiana Division of the Arts in Baton Rouge has granted an award of $5,549 to mount this exhibition. Organized by Michael Klein, who currently serves as curator for the Microsoft collection in Seattle, the exhibition features Benglis' most recent works, 25 highly glazed ceramic sculptures. Klein will travel to Shreveport for the opening of the exhibition at which time he will lecture to the community-at-large. Benglis, a native of Lafayette, Louisiana, who now lives and works in New York City, will also visit Shreveport and lecture during the Materials Girl exhibition.
"We are very fortunate to have the support of these granting agencies, " said Dufilho. "With this assistance, the Meadows Museum of Art is able to bring the finest work currently being created to the region. This support also allows us to organize and curate traveling exhibitions of our own that promote the region's artists at other venues scheduled by arts institutions. It's a tap on the shoulder to those individuals who need to sit up and take note of the extraordinary quality of work the artists of this region have produced and the contributions they have made to the cultural legacy of the State of Louisiana."
In addition to the presentation of exhibitions of the highest aesthetic quality, the Meadows Museum of Art offers a variety of community-based programs and events throughout the year. These are developed in tandem with exhibitions and are available to the entire community. For more information about Museum exhibitions, programs and events, or to receive a 1999-2000 exhibition guide, call the Museum at the phone number above.
The Meadows Museum of Art is located on the west side of the Centenary College campus at 2911 Centenary Boulevard. It is open free of charge to the general public from 12-4 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and from 12-5 p.m. on Thursday. Weekend hours are 1-4 p.m. Meadows is closed on Monday.
The Museum receives support from the Shreveport Art Guild, Friends of the Meadows Museum. The Meadows Museum of Art receives general operating support from the Shreveport Regional Arts Council with funds from the City of Shreveport. The Museum also seeks and receives funding from public and private sources on a project-by-project basis.
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