Texas (2006)

From September to December 2006, Take Me To The River was featured at the Wichita Falls Art Museum in Wichita Falls, Texas. Sixteen TMTTR artists exhibited their work, along with three invited artists from the Wichita Falls area. Due to enormous publicity and extensive media coverage (including television interviews and newspaper articles), the exhibition’s opening ceremony was a huge community event—the largest in the museum’s history.

One week before the exhibtion opening, nine TMTTR artists traveled to Wichita Falls to stage a community outreach education program. In partnership with the museum and the Wichita Falls School District the TMTTR artists conducted  art workshops with 250 students, ranging in age from eight to eighteen, at ten different primary and secondary schools. The students designed and assembled sculptural vessels that reflected their cultural heritage and these pieces were placed on display within the Museum’s TMTTR exhibition. A Family Day celebration was hosted by the museum, which drew an even larger crowd to the museum than the opening night reception, thus broadening the museum’s outreach and attendance goals. Media coverage for this community outreach education program was also very extensive.

Artists participating in this exhibition included John H. Brown, Jr., David Carlson, Y. David Chung, Richard L. Dana, Sherman Fleming, Ashraf Fouad, Abrie Fourie, B. C. Gilbert, Mansoora Hassan, Suguru Hiraide, Judy Jashinsky, Maggie Michael, Randall Packer, Ivana Panizzi, José Ruiz, Ruza Spak, Betsy Stewart, Andres E. Tremols, and Liz Yarosz-Ash.

Take Me To The River offers special recognition to the Exhibition Sponsors for their generous contributions and support of The River Project: Southwest Airlines, Homewood Suites by Hilton, Midwestern State University, The Midwestern State University Foundation, The Priddy Foundation.

In addition, special acknowledgments to: Aisha D. Davis of DESHO Productions, Vivo Design, Inc., Mona 21, Ruth Compton, David Jacobs, Karen Price Ward, Dr. Jesse Rogers, Cohn and Cathy Drennan, the staff of WFMA, Danny Bills, Jeff Desborough, Shirley Desborough, Mary Helen Maskill, and Doris Thornburg.

Wichita Falls Museum of Art at Midwestern State University, 2 Eureka Circle, Wichita Falls, Texas
There is no admission charge for the museum or this exhibition