Tag: Past

Texas Noir: Photography by Ashton Thornhill

Ashton Thornhill is a fine art photographer currently working on the Llano Estacado of Texas. He spent several years working as a photojournalist before he returned to his alma mater, Texas Tech University, to share his love of the medium and teach photography. After almost three decades in the classroom, he retired to devote his considerable talents to developing his own Texas Noir: Photography by Ashton Thornhill

As Is Rural Realism

Identifiable subjects are only part of the enduring allure of realism. Each generation of realist artists brings new subjects and new media to the genre.  AS IS rural realism features the art of contemporary realists whose work transforms the mundane into the magical by concentrating on off-road subjects and offering unique ways of seeing just how significant the seemingly insignificant can be. Just As Is Rural Realism

Skyline Maker: The Architecture of David S. Castle

This exhibition will highlight the career of Abilene architect David S. Castle. As one of the most significant and prominent architects in Abilene and the Big Country in the early to mid-1900s, David S. Castle designed and built hundreds of schools, residential buildings, hotels, medical buildings, municipal buildings, churches, recreational buildings, and courthouses. The exhibition will discuss Castle’s role in Skyline Maker: The Architecture of David S. Castle

History of Cameras Before the iPhone

We have captured the rapid changing world through the lens of a camera since the mid-nineteenth century. From early daguerreotypes to digital smartphones, photography has advanced just as quickly as the society that utilizes these cameras to capture history’s most significant events to everyday life.  This exhibition includes various cameras, tools, and instruments to illustrate the evolution of cameras and History of Cameras Before the iPhone

A Visual Epilogue: Linda Ridgway & Harry Geffert

A Visual Epilogue: Linda Ridgway & Harry Geffert is the first and last, two person exhibition of works on paper and sculpture by two of the most prolific and widely- recognized contemporary artists of the past decades. Ridgway ad Geffert worked together in life and in the studio. The original concept for the exhibition was transformed by the November 2017, A Visual Epilogue: Linda Ridgway & Harry Geffert

Inherit the Earth: Margaret Smithers-Crump

The art of Margaret Smithers-Crump is rooted in a life-long love of both our planet as well as personal and global human interactions with the natural world. Her current work examines microscopic and macroscopic relationships in nature. Travels aboard and experience of the vast open spaces of West Texas has had a particular influence on the works to be exhibited Inherit the Earth: Margaret Smithers-Crump

Outside of Time: Philip John Evett (1923-2016)

“The sculptures emerge from the making, from the initial process of joining pieces of wood anticipating the evolution of forms in significant relationship, which becomes the focus for exploration. I prefer not to plan but to discover surprises. The titles come later and are suggestive. The drawings follow the hand in the same way. What is not planned cannot be Outside of Time: Philip John Evett (1923-2016)

International Holocaust Remembrance Day – Cultural Heritage Exhibition 2023

International Holocaust Remembrance Day takes place each year on January 27th, the anniversary of the liberation of the Auschwitz-Birkenau Concentration Camp. This exhibition highlights the history of the Holocaust, displacement and mass murder of Jewish people, the role Texans played as liberators, and the history of Abilene’s Jewish community.

Kate Breakey: Journey

“The exhibition title ‘Journey’ refers to both my own life’s journey, ‘looking’, as well as the visual journey I want to share with you.” -Kate Breakey For this exhibition, Journey, Kate Breakey draws from several bodies of work made over several decades of image making. Breakey has always altered her photographic images. Over her 40-year career, her techniques include hand Kate Breakey: Journey

Magic & Logic: Robert Langham III

“A statement attributed to Ansel Adams is: ‘You don’t take a photograph, you make it’. Robert Langham has embraced that concept and taken his art one step further.” -Geoffrey Koslov, New Visions-Part 1: Still Life Photography, May 22, 2018 Robert Langham’s kinetic still life, logic defying, photographs are made with a magician’s slight-of-hand and the skill of a master-of-the-darkroom. Spending Magic & Logic: Robert Langham III

Divine Order: Conan Chadbourne

Conan Chadbourne studied mathematics and physics at New York University and has worked in experimental physics research, digital imaging and printing, graphic design, and documentary film production. His work is motivated by a fascination with the occurrence of mathematical and scientific imagery in traditional art forms, and the frequently mystical or cosmological significance found in such imagery. Mathematical themes both Divine Order: Conan Chadbourne

Deliberate Distraction: Shawn Smith and Rusty Scruby

ART + SCIENCE = WONDER The common misconception that art and science are so vastly different, that they never overlap, is discredited by two contemporary artists, Rusty Scruby and Shawn Smith, whose work proves that the union of these two disciplines, like the brain’s neuropathways between our right (artistic) and left (analytical) hemispheres, is the sweet spot known as creativity.  Deliberate Distraction: Shawn Smith and Rusty Scruby

Before iPhone: Photography by Paul Sokal

Award-winning photographer and physician, Dr. Paul Sokal MD, explores the rapid pace of technological change through large format color photographs of the relics of once-revolutionary products now replaced by cell phones. According to Sokal, “As our world becomes increasingly complex and technology dependent, I am often drawn back to my mid-century childhood when the world at least seemed simpler. The Before iPhone: Photography by Paul Sokal

The Fine Art of Collecting

Selections from the Judge B. Michael and Elise Chitty Collection Mike and Elise Chitty’s interest in art began shortly after they married in 1977. As of 2017, their private collection consists of more than 400 works of art and artifacts and counting. For the collectors, each object contains the history of creative expression and the experience of discovery.  The couple’s The Fine Art of Collecting

Hispanic Heritage Month – Cultural Heritage Exhibition 2022

The Grace Museum is collaborating with Abilene Christian University’s Introduction to Public History: Interpreting American Pasts course to create monthly exhibitions that coincide with different cultural heritage months throughout the year. These exhibitions highlight the narratives of various cultural groups that are integral to Abilene’s history while weaving these stores into the broader historical fabric of the United States. Hispanic Hispanic Heritage Month – Cultural Heritage Exhibition 2022

Native American Heritage Month – Cultural Heritage Exhibition 2022

The Grace Museum is collaborating with Abilene Christian University’s Introduction to Public History: Interpreting American Pasts course to create monthly exhibitions that coincide with different cultural heritage months throughout the year. These exhibitions highlight the narratives of various cultural groups that are integral to Abilene’s history while weaving these stores into the broader historical fabric of the United States. November Native American Heritage Month – Cultural Heritage Exhibition 2022