Museum Day 2009

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Austin Museum Partnership Celebrates the Twelfth Annual Austin Museum Day on September 20, 2009

Media Contact: Stephanie Jarvis (512) 472-8180 or director@frenchlegationmuseum.org

Austin, TX — The Austin Museum Partnership is proud to host the twelfth annual Austin Museum Day — a free, city-wide rediscovery of Austin museums. On Sunday, September 20, take the entire family out on the town to enjoy local exhibits and activities at 28 participating institutions!

Special activities planned include: Robotics past & present at the Goodwill Computer Museum; live music at the Texas Music Museum; a chance to make your own collage at Mexic-Arte Museum; and a Cyberchase at the Austin Children’s Museum.

The Austin Museum Partnership is a consortium of Austin-area museums organized in 1998 to promote collaborations for the mutual benefit of the public and the museums.

The membership includes art and science museums; historic sites and history museums; nature preserves, natural habitats, and botanical gardens; the University of Texas library and art repositories; a Presidential library; a children's museum; a museum about Texas music; and the spectacular Texas State Capitol. And best of all, it's all right here in Austin, Texas!

Find the participating Museums and 2009 Museum Day activities below.

Special thanks to our media sponsors the Austin Chronicle, News 8 Austin/Time Warner Cable, and Capital Metro.

Museum Day 2009 Participants

Museum Day 2009 Activities

Arthouse at the Jones Center

700 Congress Avenue

10 am-5 pm

Double feature film screenings starting at 1:00 pm: Cleopatra (1963, PG, directed by Joseph Maniewicz, starring Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton) and Spartacus (1960, PG-13, directed by Stanley Kubrick, starring Kirk Douglas and Laurence Olivier).

Austin Children's Museum

201 Colorado Street

10 am - 5 pm

Catch the opening weekend of new feature exhibit, Cyberchase: The Chase is On! Join your favorite TV characters for an exciting, hands-on, math mystery adventure! Enjoy other exhibit favorites such as En mi familia, Funstruction Zone, Global City, Tinkerer’s Workshop and more. Come explore, learn and play!

Austin Museum of Art - Downtown

823 Congress Avenue

12-5 pm

Visit AMOA-Downtown at 9th & Congress to enjoy free art activities, storytelling, and performances in the galleries by Mr. Johnny and Sharon plus the current exhibition Chuck Close: A Couple of Ways of Doing Something. Discover AMOA-Laguna Gloria at 3809 West 35th St. off Mopac with a self-guided scavenger hunt exploring its history and natural beauty, as well as the exhibition Laguna Gloria Grounded.

Austin Nature and Science Center

301 Nature Center Drive

12-5 pm

Its been a hot summer! Visit the Austin Nature and Science Center for fun hands on experiments to learn more about how heat, wind, sun and water work together to create our weather. Solar bags, UV detection beads and information about global warming.

The Blanton Museum of Art

MLK at Congress

1-4:30 pm

Discover the Latin American artist Francisco Matto through hands-on gallery activities, art making, Story Time tours, and more at this special event for families. Hurry! Don’t miss the opportunity to see Francisco Matto: The Modern and the Mythic. The exhibition closes September 27. Free and open to the public.

Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum

1800 N. Congress Avenue

12-6 pm

Come explore the permanent exhibits of The Bob Bullock Texas State History Museum featuring the sights, sounds, and even smells of Texas history, including in-depth looks at three themes as big as the Lone Star State: Land, Identity, and Opportunity. Come by now as time is running out to see the special exhibit Forgotten Gateway: Coming to America through Galveston Island. This unique exhibit explores the story of Galveston as one of America’s top ten transoceanic ports of entry into Texas and the U.S. from the 19th and early 20th centuries through the lens of individual immigration stories.

Butridge Gallery at the Dougherty Arts Center

1110 Barton Springs Rd

10 am – 5 pm

AVAA Invitational, a statewide juried exhibition of multi media works by the Austin Visual Arts Association celebrating the 32nd Anniversary in the contemporary arts. This innovative exhibit brings together an impressive collection of art, placing works by well-known veteran artists side by side with up-and-coming emerging artists. Gallery Talk held on Sunday, September 20 from 12-1:30pm.

Capitol Visitors Center

112 East 11th Street

12-5 pm

Hear Texan and Mexican accounts of the last battle of the Texas Revolution in the exhibit, Voices from San Jacinto. Listen to dramatic readings, view artifacts from the battlefield, examine historical documents and explore Henry McArdle's Battle of San Jacinto painting through an interactive kiosk. Visitors can also receive free Texas and Mexican flag stickers. The Visitors Center features other interactive and hands-on exhibits about the Capitol and Texas history.

French Legation Museum

802 San Marcos Street

1-5 pm

Come celebrate the 170th anniversary of France’s official recognition of the Republic of Texas! Experience this remarkable chapter in Texas history with an afternoon visit to the “mansion on the hill,” Austin’s French Legation. Enjoy the Legation’s open house, participate in delightful activities to entertain Austinites of the 1840s, learn about lesser-known historical facts through presentations by special guest speakers, and relax with the whole family in the heart of Austin. It’s fun to learn about 170 years of Franco-Texan friendship at the French Legation Museum!

Goodwill Computer Museum

1015 Norwood Park Blvd

10 am-5 pm

Come enjoy a blast from the past! At the Goodwill Computer Museum, youth of all ages can see how technology has evolved throughout the decades and adults can experience the high tech revolution all over again! Activities for the day will include interactive vintage games, past and present robotics demonstrations: TOPO, AIBO, and LEGO MINDSTORMS, plus tours of the Goodwill recycling program are available at 11:00 a.m., 1:00 p.m., and 3:00 p.m.

Harry Ransom Center

21st and Guadalupe

12-5 pm

Come explore two new Harry Ransom Center exhibitions, From Out That Shadow: The Life and Legacy of Edgar Allan Poe and Other Worlds: Rare Astronomical Works. Let one of our expert docents guide you through these exhibitions with many never-before exhibited materials from the Center’s collections. Tours will meet in the lobby at noon, 2 pm, and 4 pm. The First Photograph and a rare copy of the Gutenberg Bible are on permanent display.

Jacob Fontaine Religious Museum

1-5 pm

In our new location, this is the place to re-live, share and enjoy images from 1900, featuring rotating exhibits as well. Our permanent collection includes Bibles, Music, Church Hats, Children's Room with their "Save Our History" Projects on display, Dolls, Historic postage stamps, Quilts, Historic Bell and more.

Jourdan-Bachman Pioneer Farms

1400 Pioneer Farms Drive

12-5pm

Don't miss your chance to help restore a log cabin, to put the chinking in between the logs just like the pioneers did it! Live demonstrations all afternoon in our Sprinkle Corner entrance village, plus historical reenactments on our four restored historic sites, farm animals and live music! Enjoy new exhibits and displays. Fun for the entire family. Come explore the past amid real Texas history!

Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center

4801 La Crosse Avenue

9 am – 5pm

Join the Wildflower Center for our annual Women in Science program, encouraging and inspiring young women (and boys) to pursue science careers. Participants will be able to talk to plant biologists, mathematicians, chemists and other women scientists from 1 to 3 p.m. in the Visitors Gallery. On exhibit: Natural Rhythm, origami installation; and Water Sparks, limestone and glass works. In The Store: Annual Fall Seed Sale! 20% off our entire stock of wildflower and grass seed for one day only (in-store sales only). Planting experts on site in the afternoon.

Landmarks Public Art Tour

1pm

Join student docents for an insightful tour of Landmarks public art projects located throughout the university’s campus. This tour builds awareness and appreciation of modern and contemporary art, featuring world class sculpture from The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Please R.S.V.P. to landmarks@austin.utexas.edu.

Lyndon B. Johnson Library and Museum

2313 Red River Street

9 am - 5 pm

Want to write a letter to the President? Come to the LBJ Library & Museum from 1 - 3 p.m. to read letters and see art work sent by children to President Lyndon Johnson. Write your own letter to President Barack Obama and we'll mail it for you. Other highlights at the Library: a replica of the Oval Office, a joke-telling LBJ, a moon rock, and the First Lady's Gallery, which tells the story of Lady Bird Johnson's environmental and domestic achievements.

Mexic-Arte Museum

419 Congress Avenue

10 am-5 pm

Hector Hernandez, one of the artists in the feature exhibition Young Latino Artists, will be teaching collage illustration for the entire family. This exhibition is the most exciting of the season, in which the artists present their vision in a reexamination of aesthetic norms with new and experimental mediums. With the children, Hector will be demonstrating how to work with painted paper and mixed media, using colors, shapes and patterns to create collages. For the older audience, he will incorporate the same elements by adding cutouts of photos/images from magazines. Cut, paste, learn, and have fun!

Neill Cochran House Museum

2310 San Gabriel

10 am – 5 pm

Enjoy ice cream and cookies or drink lemonade on the porch before crossing the threshold of this Greek Revival gem that Abner Cook built while he worked on the Texas Governor’s Mansion. Expert Civil War re-enactors will be on hand again this year to talk about the era before and during Reconstruction when the Neill-Cochran House served as a hospital for Federal troops. And, as usual, a surprise is in store for all!

O. Henry Museum

409 East Fifth Street

12-5 pm

Join us in celebrating O. Henry's birthday! We'll have cake and lemonade, a coloring contest, a drawing with multiple prizes, and maybe even a special guest. The O. Henry Museum offers a look into the life of William Sidney Porter in the Austin years leading up to his controversial prison term, during which he earnestly assumed the pen name O. Henry and set about transforming himself into the famed short story writer who authored such universal classics as "The Gifts of the Magi," "The Ransom of Red Chief," and "The Cop and the Anthem."

Republic of Texas Museum

510 E. Anderson Lane

10 am-4pm

Kids gather round our wonderful Texas storyteller, Mrs. Nancy as she delights your imagination with tall tales and true stories of life in Texas during the early Republic years. Come and dress up as early Texas Settlers or cowboys, and experience a Day in the Life of great-Grandma as you explore her “old-fashioned” kitchen and house.

Sheffield Education Center

2201 Barton Springs Rd (Barton Springs Bathhouse)

12-5 pm

Splash into the Edwards Aquifer exhibit at the Sheffield Education Center which is dedicated to educating visitors about the Edwards Aquifer and its importance to Central Texas. Join staff and partnering organizations for an afternoon of fun activities that teach about water quality, aquatic invertebrate identification and geology.

Texas Memorial Museum

UT Campus: 2400 Trinity

1-5 pm

Celebrate Family Fossil Fun Day at the Texas Memorial Museum! Join us for fossil identifications, hands-on presentations by paleontologists, storytime, fossil dig pit, and paleo-themed crafts and activities. Enjoy!

Texas Military Forces Museum

2200 West 35th Street at Camp Mabry

10 am - 4 pm

Experience the full sweep of military history in this 45,000 square foot museum detailing the history of Texas Military Forces from the Texas Revolution to the War on Terror. Tanks, halftracks, aircraft, artillery, machine guns, uniforms, weapons, equipment and personal items carried by Texas soldiers from 1823 to the present bring history to your fingertips. Photo ID required for all adults entering Camp Mabry.

Texas Music Museum

1109 E. 11th Street

1:30 - 4:30 pm

Enjoy our feature exhibit of “Texas Pop” as well as “German Contributions to Texas Music.” Live music from 2 p.m. to 4:30 p.m. featuring Austin’s own “LeRoi Brothers” and a new musical group, “Fractals.” Free refreshments will be served.

Umlauf Sculpture Garden & Museum

605 Robert E. Lee Road

10 am - 4 pm

Inside the Gallery: WATER Sparks, a new exhibit featuring 30 years of Damian Priour's limestone and glass sculptures. Out in the Garden: SculptFest, with 25 sculptor members of the Texas Society of Sculptors surrounded by their work & demonstrating their techniques for working in a wide variety of different materials. Sculptors of all ages are welcome to sculpt a piece of heir own to take home at one of our one dozen clay tables.

Wild Basin Wilderness Preserve

805 N. Capital of Texas Highway

9 am - 3 pm

Wild Basin is a 227-acre wilderness preserve, located just six miles west of downtown Austin. With over 3 miles of hiking and interpretive trails, the Basin is a jewel of the Hill Country and a fascinating outdoor classroom for discovering native species, wildlife, geology, natural history and more. There are always exciting and informative tours and events, including: Tiny Footprints for pre-K children, monthly Wild Basin Walks, Moonlighting and Stargazing, concerts, Indian Lore and Flintnapping, school tours, birthday parties, teacher training, and much, much more.