Would you believe a huge, modern art museum filled with top-quality works by dozens of exciting contemporary artists, in Roswell? Would you believe two modern art museums in Roswell?
Bao and I are visiting the Roswell Museum and Art Center, surrounded by sculpture and the kind of innovative and experimental work you'd expect to see (but don't, anymore) at MOMA. This is unbelievable. And there's room after room after room of it. When we're done here we'll continue on to the Anderson Museum of Contemporary Art and another seven galleries (comprising 17,000 square feet) of photographs, paintings, prints, drawings and sculpture. All of it top quality.
How can such a small town support two major art museums, neither of which charges admission? asks Bao.
Since 1967, the Roswell Artist-in-Residence Program (founded and funded by local businessman and artist Donald Anderson) has been bringing artists from all over the world to Roswell, providing them with a full year of accommodation, studio space and monthly stipends. The Roswell Museum showcases their work, and the artists show their gratitude by either lending pieces or donating them outright. Everybody wins. Roswell gets an Art Museum filled with a collection other cities would kill to acquire, and the artists get a "gift of time" that allows them to work without distraction and break new ground. Pure genius.
Plus they have the Anderson Museum, which is also a venue for civic and charitable events, dinners, meetings and workshops. And a fabulous collection of Donald Anderson's own evocative, haunting landscapes, which fill an entire gallery.
Turns out, there's a lot more to Roswell than UFOs. Bao is impressed. I'm impressed.