UW Art Museum to Celebrate Summer Solstice June 21

The public is invited to attend the University of Wyoming Art Museum’s annual summer solstice celebration Friday, June 21, from 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m.

The celebration will include appetizers and live music by Americana banjo duo The Littlest Birds.

Visitors are encouraged to arrive before noon to witness a unique architectural feature in which a single beam of sunlight shines through a solar tube in the ceiling of the Rotunda Gallery and illuminates the 1923 Peace dollar that is set into the center of the gallery’s floor. This free event occurs yearly at noon on the summer solstice. Visitors are invited to celebrate the longest day of the year and the official beginning of summer.

Members of the Laramie Astronomical Society and Space Observers will have telescopes set up on the terrace for visitors to safely view the surface of the sun until 1:30 p.m.

A free smoothie bike will be available for visitors to make smoothies using their own leg power on the terrace.

The UW Art Museum will have free make-and-take art activities, including explorations with light using stencils, markers and sun-sensitive fabrics in the upstairs Shelton Studio. In the lower Museum Studio, the museum will offer a variety of reflective materials to make sun mobiles. All activities will end at 1:30 p.m.

Summer exhibitions on view are: “Western Explorations: The Wyoming Arts Council Biennial Fellowship Exhibition 2018 and 2019”; “New Acquisitions: The Art Museum Collection”; “Pavel Acosta: Stolen from the Museum”; “Deborah Willis: Reflections on Civil War”; “The Dorothy and Herbert Vogel Collection: Fifty Works for Wyoming”; “Tashi Norbu: Tibetan Live Painting Performance”; and “Sharon Louden: ‘Windows’ at the University of Wyoming Art Museum.”

For more information about the UW Art Museum, call (307) 766-6622, visit the website at www.uwyo.edu/artmuseum, or follow the museum on Facebook and Instagram.

Through its “Museum as Classroom” approach, the UW Art Museum places art at the center of learning for all ages. Located in the Centennial Complex at 2111 E. Willett Drive in Laramie, the museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays from 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Thursday hours are extended to 7 p.m. Admission is free.