San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts Bowls Visitors Over
arts, ceramic expositions, culture, local flavor, san angelo museum of fine arts, world-class art,
From floor to ceiling, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts is Texas all the way.
The museum is famous for its National Ceramic Competition and ceramic exhibits that lure artists from around the world, but also is known for its building, which opened in 1999. The construction is centered on showcasing its Texas heritage, with local limestone and end grain Texas mesquite, as well as the area’s rich, red clay used throughout. Three soaring galleries, a research library, and a rooftop garden with sweeping city views all enhance the museum’s permanent collection and traveling exhibits. From opening day, the building’s mix of local flavor and world-class art has gotten it noticed.
“We’ve been written up around the world,” says Howard Taylor, the museum’s first and only director. “We’re getting 85,000 people a year through here, which is amazing for a city our size. Many of those are tourists, but we also have more than 300 programs throughout the year, including a chamber music concert series.”
The museum’s highest-profile event is its National Ceramic Competition, begun in 1986 and now so popular that it’s held every other year, rotating with an invitational ceramic event. During both events the ceramic world descends on San Angelo, Taylor says.
“For four days, we have nonstop parties and activities with the artists, as well as a symposium, a daylong workshop in cooperation with the Old Chicken Farm Art Center and a barbecue.”
Over time, the ceramics shows have grown to include other events, including a bus tour on opening night that transports participants to other arts venues. That ability to boost tourism, especially in the city, is a chief goal of the museum, Taylor says, adding that an ambitious urban redevelopment project will further enhance its presence.
“We made a serious commitment to downtown when we came,” Taylor says. “Things were a little rough around here, with a lot of decaying buildings. We’ve been able to lead a mini-renaissance, which is continuing as we broaden our reach.”
The museum has purchased an entire block of older buildings and is renovating them. One will become a community gallery, while another will be an apartment and studio for a resident artist who will work on-site while teaching classes in the museum’s well-equipped education wing and in area schools. Another building will house space for the Upper Colorado River Authority, which has created a water recycling system along the El Paseo de Santa Angela just outside the museum.
“It’s runoff rainwater that’s cleaned up underground, then recycled through a series of cascading fountains,” Taylor says. “We’ll be taking on a really ambitious program of environmental education, which includes taking the grounds around the museum and turning them into a botanical garden of native plants. We want the museum experience to be both inside and outside.”
Story by Joe Morris
Photo by Wes Aldridge
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The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts will exhibit the collage and assemblage art of Texas artist, James Michael Starr, January 29 through April 5. An opening reception for the artist is 5:30 to 8:30 Thursday, January 29, and Starr will give a gallery talk at noon on Friday, January 30. Among the more than 30 recent works by the Dallas artist will be an installation created specifically for this show: "Happy Canyon," fashioned from locally found objects, is one in his long line of variations on an astronomical theme, and incorporates glass lamp globes from a San Angelo junk store and mesquite branches from Angelo State University’s 4,600-acre research farm.
By James Michael Star
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