Celebrating the Future will be the theme for this year’s Ellen Noël Art Museum’s Community Art Day.
The event is free and open to the public and will take place from 12 p.m. to 3 p.m. Saturday at 4909 E. University Blvd. in Odessa.
Ellen Noël Art Museum Executive Director Sheila Perry said the event has grown over the years.
“It’s more than a community art day,” Perry said. “It’s like we’ve blown it up into a family fun event. That component of it is going to be our community art day with art activities. But there’s also going to be carnival games and food trucks so it’s an expanded event for families.”
The museum has been doing community art days for over 20 years now.
“We do about 10 a year, Perry said. “Most of them are here at the museum and others are out in the community. … We started doing the outreach portion of that maybe three or four years ago. The community art day is a longstanding commitment that we have to our community but we’ve decided to expand this particular one. It’s going to be an exciting time not only for the art museum but also for the community.”
The event will include arts and crafts and numerous food trucks.
A special announcement regarding future plans for the museum will also take place at 12:30 p.m.
“This will be the first time the public can see up and close what the museum has planned for the future and we’re going to have an announcement as to where we are in that process,” Perry said. “We’re going to have community leaders here to help us celebrate this milestone.”
Perry has talked about how the museum has experienced a steady increase in community engagement over the years.
“One of the things that we’ve realized is that for us to be able to serve our community, we have to grow,” Perry said. “Through the increase of the types of programs, the number of collaborations that we’ve worked on in the past five years, we know that we’re heading into the new phase of the Ellen Noël Art Museum. We’re wrapping up how it is that we serve our community and who we’re working with in our community to make that happen. It’s all been moving towards what we have planned for the future.”
The event will include art stations and upcoming summer programs such as TARP and Summer Art Camps.
Guests will have an opportunity to view the exhibitions, enjoy food, carnival games and art activities.
There will also be guests from the University of Texas Permian Basin’s Pots and Prints and Basin PBS.
“We’ll have maybe about six to eight art activities including origami and face painting,” Perry said. “Most of them will be tied to a carnival theme. We’ll have activities for art making and good old fashion carnival games. There’s going to be some great food trucks.”
If you go
- What: Ellen Noël Art Museum Community Art Day.
- Where: 4909 E. University Blvd.
- When: 12 p.m.-3 p.m. Saturday.
