LMPAF2020
VIRTUALGALA
“The greatness of a community is most accurately measured by the compassionate actions of its members.” - Coretta Scott King
The Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation invites you to our inaugural Virtual Gala. The Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation has transitioned this year’s fundraiser to the virtual sphere on its website and social media networks. This year’s fundraiser highlights four of the Foundation’s tenets over the last year: partnerships, exhibitions, youth programs, and beautification. This year, the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation honors Wyatt Kenneth Coleman, freelance photographer and photojournalist, known for his work in documenting the civil rights movement and his contributions to the City of Lancaster. Please join us in supporting our community by donating to one or more of these funds!
Your donation supports:
Honoring Wyatt Kenneth Coleman
Civil Rights Photographer | Veteran | Community Leader
Wyatt Kenneth Coleman is a freelance photographer and photojournalist whose career spans more than fifty years. While serving time during the Vietnam War, he studied in the U.S. Air Force Photography School, gaining skills that would benefit him in both his military and artistic careers. His work has focused on documenting social justice movements and their leaders such as the late Representative John Lewis. Known for his documentation of the civil rights and labor movements, his work includes collaborations with the Coretta Scott King, demonstrating Coleman’s dedication to social justice and the community in which he lives. The Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation is proud to honor Wyatt Kenneth Coleman for his contributions to photography, activism and leadership in the City of Lancaster and across the nation.
Coleman’s passion lies in depicting empathy and dignity to his artistic subjects and providing the viewer with a newfound appreciation and perspective towards humanity. For Coleman, he believes that photography can serve as a medium to demonstrate the complexities of the human experience. Mainly, he is inspired by community members whose works focus on the betterment of humankind which includes his involvement in the creation of The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia. Through his work, Coleman encourages his viewers to contemplate their involvement in their communities, “what is it that you can do to make this world a better place?” Coleman was interested in the effect that the Civil Rights Movement had on the lives of ordinary people, stating, “When a person is committed and makes a contribution to their community, lives are changed and doing the right thing is really key.” His work documents everyday people participating in non-violent activism by committing acts of kindness and working towards social justice.
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Wyatt Kenneth Coleman has certifications from the Winona School of Professional Photography, the University of Minnesota and Santa Fe Photographic workshops. Coleman’s work has been shown in publications including 3M, Ebony and Jet Magazines and The Daily Word. Coleman has also been awarded for his selfless volunteer service in the communities of Minneapolis and St. Paul, and was recognized for his volunteer work at the Elm Avenue Community Garden by Assemblyman Tom Lackey, in addition to receiving an award from Lancaster City Council for his contributions to the community. Coleman stays involved with the museum which has hosted two exhibitions of his work: Love, Peace and Equality at MOAH:CEDAR and Beyond the Village at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History.
Popular donation tiers:
Empowering Youth Programs
With support from LMPAF, the Lancaster Museum of Art & History is able to offer several programs directed toward K-12 students across the Antelope Valley and outlying areas. These youth programs include MOAH's free Young Artist Workshop series (serving around 300 students per workshop per week), the Discovery Trunk outreach program (reaching around 8,000 students annually), the Green MOAH Initiative (reaching more than 15,000 underserved youth since 2013), the Van Go! mobile art and history museum, and various other community outreach programs at MOAH, MOAH:CEDAR, Elyze Clifford Interpretive Center and the Western Hotel Museum.
In addition, LMPAF supports the Arts for Youth program which revolves around docent-led tours that take students through MOAH’s current exhibition and provide insightful commentary and discussion about the exhibited artists and artworks. Groups of students often stay to participate in a hands-on art project that directly relates to the exhibition they experienced. LMPAF helps fund the tours and crafts as well as offering a Transportation Grant for schools or other groups interested in bringing students to the Museum.
Donations to LMPAF directly contribute to keeping these youth programs flexible and accessible during COVID-19 restrictions. More than ever, it is vital that students have these arts opportunities available to them.
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$50 Donation: Covers MOAH staff and travel expenses for one Discovery Trunk presentation
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$100 Donation: Helps pay for a Transportation Grant for an Arts for Youth tour. / pays for a live figure model for a figure drawing class at MOAH:CEDAR
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$250 Donation: Covers the supplies for one Young Artists Workshop serving 300-400 students.
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$500 Donation: Covers the cost of producing a MOAH:CEDAR Concert Series
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$1000 Donation: Covers the cost of a month-long artist in residency program.
Power in Partnerships
In this unprecedented year, the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation has worked with its partners to deliver outstanding programming, despite the COVID-19 pandemic, adapting its engaging roster of activities to meet the needs of our community with the support of our dedicated partners. Over the last 18 months the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation, with the support of the California Community Foundation, completed the second phase of its #CountMeIn project. #CountMeIn, A 2020 Census Project, began with the goal of utilizing artists to generate trust between our community members needed to help break down barriers to completing and participating in the census. Working closely with Antelope Valley Partners for Health, the Foundation engaged our surrounding communities through art workshops and an exhibition, which highlighted the beauty and vibrance of the City of Lancaster. Generously, the California Community Foundation awarded the Foundation additional funding to keep our programs going during the safer at home stay-at-home orders, and transitioning our outreach to both virtual and socially distanced environments.
At MOAH:CEDAR, the California Art Council awarded the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation with an Artists-in-Communities grant, which will enhance the existing partnership between Art In Residence and MOAH. What’s in a Landscape?, or WIAL, is a two phase project, which consists of the collection of oral histories from our indigenous communities, wildlife experts, and land stewards which will expand the museum’s archive and be used as the basis of research for the second phase of the project taking place in the virtual classrooms of Quartz Hill High School. Over the last year, our partnership with Art In Residence has led to the acquisition of Then | Now | A | Dream by the City of Lancaster, which will be installed later this year at the Prime Desert Woodland Preserve, and the breathtaking performance Generator, composed by Lori Scacco. Additionally, our partners Thinkspace Projects and Pow! Wow! Worldwide helped bring the City of Lancaster 12 new murals to The BLVD Cultural District and Owen Memorial Park for the third iteration of the arts and mural festival, Pow! Wow! Antelope Valley. Crossing over into the City of Palmdale, the Lancaster Museum and Public Art Foundation supported the second iteration of Antelopes on Parade!, which activated 7 local artists who competed to design and paint 8 fiberglass pronghorn sculptures that are on display now in the City of Palmdale’s AV Art Gallery and the Hernando and Fran Marroquin Family Classroom located at MOAH.
Beautification Over Barriers
The Museum of Art and History is responsible for the creation of several ambitious projects within the Antelope Valley with the goal of improving the quotidian lives of its citizens through the beautification of the community and the engagement of public art. Historically, contemporary art has been seen as accessible only to a privileged portion of the community. MOAH believes in removing these barriers to entry by exploring new ideas, perspectives and cultures through the creation of public art throughout the city of Lancaster. This includes community events like POW! WOW! Antelope Valley, Southbound | Northbound, Antelopes on Parade and the placement of sculptures on roundabouts in Lancaster.
POW! WOW! Antelope Valley is a part of a worldwide mural arts festival inviting contemporary artists from around the world to collaborate with local artists and students in creating narrative murals in and around Lancaster BLVD that celebrate the valley’s history and culture. POW! WOW! Antelope Valley returned for its third year in September 2020 adding to the existing 31 murals and installations previously installed during the 2016 and 2018 editions of the festival. Southbound | Northbound, led by artist Dani Dodge, is a community engagement project that will inform the public art program for the slated Avenue M Interchange updates. The goal of the project is to understand current values and perceptions by Antelope Valley residents; assess their views of the local ecology and technological innovation in the region; and build a lexicon that will guide the project with the future in mind. Residents can participate by submitting their photography, poetry and/or completing a short thought survey.
With your donation, you can help support projects like POW! WOW! Antelope Valley and Southbound | Northbound. To help keep programs like these active and sustainable please consider a donation today. MOAH and the community members who are activated through these projects appreciate your support during this critical time.
Exhibitions and Excellence
Beginning in 1990, the Lancaster Museum & Public Art Foundation has provided resource support to enhance exhibitions, collections and programming at the Lancaster Museum of Art and History by preserving more than 10,000 art and artifacts in MOAH's permanent collection and underwriting future exhibits in one of the most exciting art spaces in Southern California. With the generous support of donors, LMPAF continues to place emphasis on the voices of artists of color and women artists by supporting vibrant programming, dynamic exhibitions and diverse Museum acquisitions.
Locally, LMPAF invests in the Antelope Valley art community by supporting the CEDARFEST Student Art Show, an annual high school student art exhibition, and the Annual Juried Art Exhibition for adult artists. For each of these exhibitions, LMPAF hands out awards to artists and considers each of the Best of Exhibition artworks for acquisition into MOAH's permanent collection.
In light of COVID-19 pandemic restrictions LMPAF support has evolved to help digitize the Museum's arts experiences. Making exhibitions and programming available via live streaming, virtual tours, online panel discussions, workshops and artist talks has kept arts opportunities accessible to the public during these trying times. Your contribution will receive special attention from our staff to ensure that the specific project, program, naming opportunity or event is supported per your request mid- and post-pandemic. Please see below for examples of how your generous donation supports exhibitions.
$50 donation: Supports MOAH's volunteer docent program.
$100 donation: Supports a local artist through awards and recognition at the Annual Juried Art Exhibition and CEDARFEST Student Art Show.
$250 donation: Allows the Museum to host specialized tours such as the Visual Language American Sign Language Tours by hiring an ASL interpreter.
$500 donation: Supports CEDARFEST and/or the Annual Juried Art Exhibition.
$1000 donation: Supports the museum’s permanent collection artwork acquisition fund.
