Ney & Huff: Two HP Artists...
...cont'd from page 8
The Elisabet Ney Museum, while it is a nationally recognized institution, listed on the National Register of Historic Places and included in the National Trust for Historic Preservation's list of Historic Artists' Home and Studios, is also thoroughly integrated into the community of Austin generally and of Hyde Park specifically. Working together with the Austin Independent School District, for example, the museum has constructed a supplemental course of study for fourth-grade students based on Ney's life, which can be found on their Web site www.ci.austin.tx.us/elisabetney.
As a result, several thousand Austin-area students visit the museum annually. Also, according to the director, the museum frequently engages in cooperative endeavors with AustinŐs lyric opera and ballet organizations, its children's museum, and the preservation department of the School of Architecture at the University of Texas. Further, the museum sponsors occasional campouts for neighborhood children, and has annual Christmas programs, one recent example being 2002's "Christmas on the Range", a theme meant to reinforce the sense of wilderness that Blackmon has been striving to foster during her time as director. Another example of the Elisabet Ney Museum's community involvement was its involvement in the 1992 Centennial exhibition of photography, called "Hyde Park: Life on the Avenues", which was displayed in the state capitol and can still be seen as an online exhibit of the Austin History Center www.ci.austin.tx.us/library/ahc/hydepark/default.htm. While contributing much to the community, the museum also relies on the neighborhood for support. As Blackmon told me, the grants received from numerous national foundations have often been significantly augmented by moneys raised by members of the Hyde Park Neighborhood Association. In Hyde Park, the memorial of Ney is also an ongoing process requiring active involvement of a wide range of people and organizations to keep it alive.
The same is true, in very different ways, of Albert Huffstickler. In the next installment, we will walk a block south from the Ney Museum, and have a look around the Huff Museum, also known as the corner of 43rd and Duval.
| -- | Dennis Lensing dlensing2002@yahoo.com |
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Practice the Presence of God
