Centenary's Meadows Museum presents "Art in the Meadow" April 21
SHREVEPORT, LA — The Meadows Museum of Art at Centenary College debuts a new free community event this spring. “Art in the Meadow” will be held on Centenary’s Jones-Rice Field on Saturday, April 21 from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m. and features an outdoor makers fair, live music, and interactive games, crafts, and activities that highlight creativity, community, and sustainability.
Sean FitzGibbons, director of the Meadows Museum, was inspired to create the event that eventually became “Art in the Meadow” soon after moving to Shreveport last summer from San Antonio.
“I felt that the Meadows Museum of Art should be an institution that engages the community, because it has so much more to offer Shreveport that just a place to view artwork,” says FitzGibbons. “I saw many other groups and institutions creating family-friendly events in town when I first moved here, and I knew that the Meadows could offer something really unique.”
The design for “Art in the Meadow” purposefully intertwines the visual arts with Centenary’s liberal arts academic tradition to offer an event appealing to all ages and interests. The common thread is a celebration of curiosity, creativity, and sustainability, a combination that has produced some unexpected and innovative projects. For example, a group of Centenary students from the biology department have created a series of family-friendly activities focusing on the brain, including one that will enable children to create their very own brain or neuron. The College’s art department will help visitors create a large-scale cardboard structure – a “cardboard castle” – using recycled materials.
A diverse set of community partners will offer additional activities and interactive presentations during the daylong event. Children can create upcycled musical instruments at the Renzi Education and Art Center booth and paint rocks with staff from the R.W. Norton Art Gallery or member of the Byrd High School Beta Club. Studio Highland will be screen printing reusable grocery bags that visitors can paint to create useful, one-of-a-kind works of art, and Little You Yoga will offer a free introduction to yoga for “kids and kids at heart” from 11:00 to 11:45 a.m. Families can garden with LSU AgCenter representatives, play with adoptable dogs from Louisiana Dog Rescue, learn about the local food movement from The Levee and the Shreveport Orchard Squad, and sample mindfully sourced tea with Shreveport Tea.
“Art in the Meadow” will be the culmination of a week-long series of events celebrating sustainability at Centenary. Dr. Alejandro Sánchez Alvarado, a noted researcher in the science of regeneration, gave a public lecture at the College and visited a biology lab on April 17. Don Hooper, professor of theatre, used locally-sourced materials and sustainable practices to construct the sets for Prince Orlovsky’s Ball at Marjorie Lyons Playhouse, a collaboration between MLP and the Hurley School of Music’s Singers’ Workshop class.
Thanks to generous sponsorships from RoseStone Financial Group – Ameriprise Private Wealth Advisory Practice and the Centenary Muses, all “Art in the Meadow” events and activities are free. Food trucks from Beaux Jax and Happy Belly will be on hand offering food and drink for purchase, and the first 150 people visiting the Happy Belly truck will receive a free Italian ice. The makers fair features more than a dozen local artists and makers, and the Friends of the Meadows will offer a large sale of second-hand art books.