ALBANY, NY – As we continue to experience one of the warmest winters on record in the Northeast, the New York State paleontologist is reporting new research suggesting that high sea levels leading to “global hyperwarming” are much more important than carbon dioxide levels in predicting global climate change.

Dr. Ed Landing, state paleontologist and curator of paleontology at the New York State Museum, has recently published his findings online in “Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology,” an international journal that publishes high quality and multi-disciplinary, original studies with global implications in the field of palaeo-environmental geology.

Since the middle 1800s scientists have considered high carbon dioxide levels to be a greenhouse gas and a driver of higher global temperatures. However, Landing’s study of the rock succession in New York state shows that periodic extreme temperatures, with oceans reaching 100 F, occurred within “greenhouse” intervals. He terms these “global hyperwarming” times, and shows that they correspond to intervals of very high sea-levels.

“Global hyperwarming” is a previously unrecognized climate condition. As sea levels rise, Landing’s research suggests that with the predicted melting ofpolar ice caps, the continents will reflect less sun light back to space and less reflective shallow seas will store heat and warm as they overlap the land.Warming seas willrapidly work to increase global temperatures and heat the world ocean. This leads to a feedback that further expands ocean volume, with heating,and furtheraccelerates both global warming and sea-level rise. In the course of this feedback, marine water circulation and oxygenation fall due in part to the fact thathot waters hold less oxygen.

Landing firstrecognized the imprint of "global hyperwarming"in 520 to 440 million-year-old, shallow to deep-water rocks in eastern New York and from other information received on localities worldwide. This time interval shows nine intervals of extreme sea-levels that coveredmuch of NorthAmerica and other ancient continents. In all cases, strong sea-level rises, which sometimes drove marine shorelines into the upper Midwest,are accompanied by the spread of hot, low oxygen marine water largely devoid of animal life down into the deep sea and across the continents.

Landing’s study may help predict the future. A 300-foot sea-level rise, which would result from melting the Greenland and Antarctica ice caps, is as great as the ancient sea-level rises documented by Landing and other scientists 520 to 460 million years ago. This sea-level rise would also lead to a warming and expansion of the ocean waters resulting in a rise of shorelines to 500 feet above present, basically covering the non-mountainous U.S. to northern Wisconsin. Even worse, in the case of New York, the Earth’s rotation would force a rise of the west Atlantic to 650 feet above present sea levels.

The full article on Landing’s research is at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2011.09.005. While working at the State Museum since 1981, Landing has authored six books, 13 New York State Museum bulletins, 200 articles and field trip guides and has received more than a dozen competitive grants. In 2009 he was elected a fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Sciences (AAAS), a high honor bestowed upon a select group of geologists nationwide

Founded in 1836, the State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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Two photography exhibitions -- Elder Grace: The Nobility of Aging and Passing the Legacy: Reflections of Our Elders -- open at the New York State Museum on Friday, October 29th.

Elder Grace features more than 50 photographs taken by New York Times photographer Chester Higgins Jr. that honor African-American men and women who have found beauty within themselves and are experiencing aging with energy, wit and grace. The New-York Historical Society organized the exhibition. The Passing the Legacy exhibition includes photo portraits of 11 prominent Capital District residents, photographed by J. El-Wise Noisette of Albany. The exhibition, presented by Albany District Links, in collaboration with Black Dimensions in Art Inc., emanated from a Links-sponsored oral history project that honored 13 area residents over the age of 75 for their outstanding contributions to the community. A video - "Passing the Legacy of the Black Family: Conversations with our Elders" will also be shown in the gallery. Both exhibitions will be in the Museum's Exhibition Hall through April 7, 2005.

The portraits in Elder Grace are the first fruits of labor of a broader portrait study of elders from all ethnic backgrounds, which Higgins began two decades ago. "I wanted to fathom the depths of the aging experience of the elders I chose - to reveal their character as it is exquisitely defined in their faces," said Higgins.

His photos honor African-Americans from all walks of life, such as writer/actor Ossie Davis, photographer/film director Gordon Parks and lesser-known Americans including a domestic worker, homemaker, teacher, attorney, sculptor and others. Their common bond is that "these are people who are comfortable within themselves - who have attained the seasoned dignity and grace that only older age can impart," said Higgins. His goal is "to encourage us as a society.to stop denigrating ourselves," to embrace the natural signs of aging "and glory in the strength of mind and character gained from years of living."

A New York Times photographer since 1975, Higgins has authored several books, including "Feeling the Spirit" and his photos have appeared in Look, Life, Time, Newsweek, Fortune, Ebony and Essence. His work was the subject of a PBS documentary and has been featured on the CBS "Sunday Morning News," PBS "Newshour" and other major network programs. Higgins' one-man exhibitions have appeared at the Smithsonian Institution, the International Center of Photography, the National Civil Rights Museum and The Field Museum of Natural History.

Noisette also has had a lifelong passion for photography. He is a New York State Senate photographer and has photographed luminaries such as President Clinton, Senator Hillary Clinton, Vice President Al Gore and State Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. His work was shown in a group exhibition - Through Our Eyes, sponsored by Black Dimensions in Art at the Schenectady Museum.

Included in the Passing the Legacy exhibition are artist/activist Margaret B. Cunningham and community leader James A. Stamper, both of Schenectady; social worker/activist Florence E. Frazier of Colonie; teacher/speech pathologist Minnie Smith Hall, playwright/author Mars Hill, educator/author Marian I. Hughes, mentor Ida Jones, volunteer Juanita L. Lewis, volunteer Virginia C. Poyer, all of Albany; volunteer/public speaker Nida E. Thomas of Guilderland Center and the late fashion designer/consultant Marion H. Johnson, formerly of Troy.

Providing support for these exhibitions are the New York State Office for the Aging, Capital District Physician's Health Plan, 104.9 LOVE FM, The Desmond Hotel and Conference Center, Bud's Florist and Greenhouses and Alpin Haus.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

ALBANY -- A brass slave collar engraved with the name of a Montgomery County slave owner, and bones from a Chautauqua County elk, more than 170 years old, are among items from the New York State Museum’s collections now on exhibit at the State Museum.

Also on display are items from an archaeological collection including trade goods from the early 1600s found in Saratoga and Washington counties, additional artifacts relating to slavery from Montgomery County, and specimens from a lichen research collection.

The items are showcased adjacent to the research gallery in a rotating display area highlighting recent additions to the Museum’s vast collections of more than 12.5 million specimens and artifacts.

The elk bones are from an adult male elk discovered in the middle of Cassadaga Lake by Gale Smagacz, a recreational kayaker of Lily Dale, N.Y., in August 2006. Elk were native to New York and roamed the state for thousands of years before being hunted to extinction in the 1830s. The elk specimen will be studied to determine how old it is, where and how it lived and died, and how it differs from modern elk.

“The abundance of the elk bones make this specimen a rare find for the State Museum collection,” said Dr. Robert Feranec, the Museum’s curator of Pleistocene Paleontology. “Because of the foresight of Gale Smagacz to donate this specimen we will be able to examine the biology of this animal as it lived in the past and make more informed decisions about New York wildlife in the future.”

Feranec is interested in hearing from others who have fossil vertebrate remains they would like to donate or know where any are located. They may contact him at (518) 474-5819.

Other items from the slavery collection on display include a broadside offering a reward for a runaway slave named Harry, and three letters pertaining to his owners’ unsuccessful efforts to find him. Harry was purchased jointly for $220 by John S. Glenn and John Diefendorff, prominent landowners in Montgomery County. Harry ran away from his Canajoharie masters sometime before March 1806. There is no proof that Glenn required his slaves to wear the collar on display, which is engraved, J.S.

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Glenn/GLENN/Montgomery Co. NY.” Such devices were usually associated with the southern plantation system and not with the type of slavery found in New York State.

Archaeological artifacts on display include items that the Dutch, English and French traded to Native Americans for beaver pelts and other goods, or presented as gifts. These found their way to sites throughout the upper Hudson River drainage after the Dutch began trading near present-day Albany in the early 1600s, first at Fort Nassau and then at Fort Orange.

Several are from the Winney Rift site on Fish Creek in Saratoga County. These include a brass “Jesuit” ring of a type given to converts by French missionaries; brass ornaments and projectile points, possibly made from kettle scrap; a glass trade bead; a European gun flint, indicating the presence of firearms on the site, and a clay pot fragment, dating from 1,000 to 400 years ago.

Also on exhibit are projectile points from the Snook Kill site on Snook Kill Creek in Saratoga County, which date to approximately 3,500 years ago, and a banded slate bannerstone, from a site in Whitehall, dating from 5,000 to 4,000 years ago. This was a weight attached to a spear thrower used prior to the advent of the bow and arrow. There also is an undated mortar stone from the Moses Kill site in Washington County, which was used to hold nuts or seeds while they were being ground into flour with a smaller round stone called a “muller.”

The artifacts were donated to the Museum by Mr. and Mrs. William H. Rice of Fort Edward. The Rices were charter members of the Auringer-Seelye chapter of the New York State Archaeological Association, which facilitated the donation. From about 1950 until the early 1970s the Rices investigated sites from northern Saratoga County to southern Lake Champlain, including many sites no longer available to researchers due to construction or other reasons.

The display also includes specimens of lichens, composite organisms consisting of a fungus and an alga. Scientists are interested in using lichens as indicators of forest health, particularly in woodlots managed for timber production. The collection on display consists of voucher specimens, which are preserved samples of the actual organisms on which research has been conducted. Vouchers are maintained in perpetuity at institutions that hold collections to allow verification of research results by subsequent investigators – an essential element of the scientific method.

There are 25,000 vouchers in the Museum’s lichen collection. Those on display are from a collection of 400 recently donated by Heather T. Root. Root conducted research to determine if the growth patterns of lichens correlated with the management of woodlots for timber production.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department, the

University of the State of New York and the Office of Cultural Education. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (ESDC), resident company of The Egg, will perform at the New York State Museum on Saturday, February 18 in a program to complement the Ann Zane Shanks: Behind the Lens exhibition, creating an unusual juxtaposition of the visual through both the camera’s eye and the dancers’ movement.

A docent-led tour of the exhibition at 7 p.m. will precede the 8 p.m. performance by ESDC in the Clark Auditorium.

The Ann Zane Shanks exhibition explores the rich and varied career of the Brooklyn-born photographer who has brought her artistic and entrepreneurial gifts to photojournalism, publishing, television and theater. Shanks' early commissioned work for public housing authorities and libraries sent her to document poor communities along the East Coast, yielding some of her most enduring images.

This retrospective exhibition of 75 photographic prints, previously seen at the New-York Historical Society, covers several themes of Shanks’ work from the 1950s through the 1970s -- life in America, changing times, travel and celebrity portraits. Her first film, “Central Park (1970),” an independent short acquired by Columbia Pictures, is on continuous view, along with some of the original books and magazines in which her work appeared.

The performance program will include repertory selections that relate to the themes in Shanks’ work. “Rising Low,” a poignant tale of loss and loneliness with music by Otis Taylor and Iris DeMent, connects to the issues of poverty and repression portrayed in some of Shanks’ photographs. Since city life permeates the works on display, ESDC will also perform excerpts from “Metropolis,” an exploration of the dynamic of various times of the day in a bustling, fast-paced city. The accompanying music for these works features new arrangements of Leonard Bernstein music by Grammy nominee Don Byron.

Also included on the program will be excerpts from ESDC’s full evening work, “From the mind/of a single, long vine/one hundred opening lives,” a work choreographed to African and African-American music that delves into the makeup of a community -- the people and their universal experiences. These excerpts tie in to Shanks’ focus on individuals and their place in society.

Tickets for the evening’s activities are $5 for museum members and $10 for the general public with a special discounted price of $7 for groups of 10 or more. Further information and reservations

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can be obtained by calling the NYS Museum at (518) 408-1033. Tickets also will be sold at the Museum main lobby desk after 10 a.m. the day of the performance.

Artistic Director and choreographer Ellen Sinopoli will be on hand for the performance and offer insights into her work during the program. About the evening, Sinopoli says, “I am delighted to have the opportunity to present my work in conjunction with the wonderful photography of Ann Zane Shanks. Her work speaks to me on many levels and elicits a reaction in me that is so very familiar to the inspirations that I had in creating many of my works, a few of which I have chosen for this program. The combination of the tour and the performance is an exciting partnering of art forms and one that should readily appeal to both visual arts enthusiasts and dance aficionados.”

The Ann Zane Shanks exhibition opened on May 15, 2005 and is scheduled to close on February 26. It was organized by guest curator Bonnie Yochelson, whose previous exhibitions include Berenice Abbott's Changing New York, 1935-1939 (Museum of the City of New York, 1998), which was featured at the State Museum November 2000 through April 2001.

The performances and programs of the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company are funded, in part,

by the New York State Council on the Arts and the City of Albany.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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Help is Here, an exhibition tracing the history of Emergency Medical Services (EMS) in New York State and the nation, will open at the New York State Museum Saturday, November 20th.

Help is Here, which will run through September 11, 2005, will feature a group of 15 historic ambulances, dating from 1911 to the present, historic medical equipment used in the field and photographs, some dating back to 1910, showing patient transport, treatment and EMS crews and equipment. Most of the objects in the exhibition are on loan to the Museum from other museums, ambulance companies and private collectors.

Ambulances on exhibit will include a 1918 Dodge used by the National League for Women's Service to transport wounded soldiers from ships returning from Europe to New York City during World War I, a 1926 Cunningham made in Rochester, and the State Museum's own 1939 Pontiac with a Superior body, the first ambulance to operate within the Adirondacks. There also will be Cadillac-based ambulances of the 1940s, 1950s, 1960s and 1970s, the very first (1969) Horton Emergency Vehicles Co. van-based ambulance and one of the last Medical Coaches Bluestar ambulances. Built in Oneonta in 1987, this rig served the village of Delhi until the spring of 2004.

Funeral directors operated several of the ambulances, a common practice through the 1960s. Notable in this category are a 1911 Cunningham horse-drawn ambulance and a 1940 LaSalle-Miller combination hearse and ambulance.

The exhibition has been made possible through the generosity of the New York State Department of Health's Bureau of Emergency Medical Services, the presenting sponsor. Providing additional support is Laerdal Medical Corporation, United New York Ambulance Network, Upstate Medical University and Emergency Medical Services Magazine.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

Transport-based rescue squads from across New York State will compete in the Help is Here EMS Challenge at the New York State Museum on Saturday, May 14th.

The event is being held in conjunction with the Museum’s Help is Here exhibition, which traces the history of Emergency Medical Services in New York State and the nation and features 15 historic ambulances. During the challenge, EMS agencies will compete in an ambulance obstacle course, stretcher race, scavenger hunt in the Help is Here gallery and other activities that are designed to demonstrate skills and teamwork. Tours of the Help is Here exhibition, open to participants and the general public, will be provided at 11 a.m. and 2 p.m.

Antique ambulances, hearses and flower cars will join the rescue vehicles in a parade, which will kick off the event at 9 a.m. The parade will begin in the parking lot on the west side of the Museum, proceed west on Park Avenue, north on Delaware Avenue and east on Madison, returning to the Museum. The antique vehicles will then be on display on the Plaza across from the Museum. The rescue squads will return to the Museum’s west parking lot where the competition will begin at 10 a.m. Later in the afternoon an award ceremony will be held at the EMS Memorial, near the Justice Building on the plaza.

The event is sponsored by the Ten Eyck Group and McNeil & Company, with additional support from North Eastern Rescue Vehicles. The New York State Department of Health, Bureau of Emergency Medical Services is the presenting sponsor for the Help is Here exhibition. Laerdal Medical Corporation, United New York Ambulance Network and Upstate Medical University have provided additional support. Media sponsor is EMS Magazine.

The State Museum is open every day except Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. The Museum is located on Madison Avenue at the Empire State Plaza in Albany. For further general information call 518-474-5877 or visit the Museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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In a rare public exhibit, one of the nation's greatest documentary treasures -- President Abraham Lincoln's Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation -- will be on display at the New York State Museum on Thursday, October 7th as part of a weeklong series of educational programs sponsored by the New York State Museum, State Library and the City School District of Albany.

The handwritten document, which has been part of the New York State Library's collection since 1865, will be on display in the Museum's South Hall lobby from 1 to 8 p.m. A brief public program is scheduled for 6:45 p.m. on October 7th providing information about how the State Library acquired the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. A facsimile of this important document will also be exhibited in the South Hall lobby throughout the week of October 4-8th.

Also during that week, the City School District of Albany will bring about 4,000 fourth through eighth grade students to view a facsimile copy of the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The actual draft document was written in Abraham Lincoln's own hand with edits from his Secretary of State William Seward, a former governor of New York. Students will also visit learning stations organized by the State Museum and the State Library. The educational programs will provide an opportunity to demonstrate how "primary sources" found at the State Museum and State Library can be used by teachers and students to enhance the curriculum. The use of "primary sources" is recommended in state learning standards for social studies at the elementary, middle school and high school levels.

The New York State Legislature purchased the four-page Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation in 1865. The final Emancipation Proclamation, declaring that all persons held as slaves within states still in rebellion against the United States on January 1, 1863 "shall be then, thenceforward, and forever free" was issued on New Year's Day 1863. The Chicago Historical Society acquired the manuscript copy of the final Emancipation Proclamation but it was lost when the Society's building was burned during the great Chicago fire of 1871.

Lincoln read the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation to his cabinet on September 22, 1862 and told them that he would accept minor changes in wording. Seward, a lifelong abolitionist, wrote in certain additions. Except for these revisions, and the formal beginning and ending written by the chief clerk, the document is otherwise entirely in Lincoln's hand.

In February and March of 1864, the Army Relief Bazaar was held to raise money for the U.S. Sanitary Commission, a precursor of the Red Cross that helped provide medical care for Union soldiers. To assist the Bazaar in its fund drive, Lincoln donated the preliminary proclamation, sending it to Emily Weed Barnes through Frederick W. Seward, son of the secretary of state. On the very last day of the Bazaar, the manuscript was won in a lottery by abolitionist Gerrit Smith. Smith generously gave the proclamation to the U.S. Sanitary Commission to be sold to raise more money. Three days after Lincoln's funeral train passed through Albany on April 25, 1865, the Legislature purchased the proclamation for the New York State Library.

"Written in President Lincoln's own hand, the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation is one of the greatest documents in American history," said Janet M. Welch, state librarian and assistant commissioner for libraries. "We are pleased to be able to give people the opportunity to view this fundamental part of our historic heritage."

"This document is a true national treasure," said State Museum Director Clifford Siegfried. "We hope teachers, students and the general public will have the opportunity to view it up close and become more aware of the many cultural resources found at the Museum and State Library that help to enhance their appreciation and understanding of American history."

"It's an honor for this district to partner with the Museum and the Library on an event that brings our students and their families that much closer to a significant piece of American history," says City School District of Albany Superintendent Dr. Eva C. Joseph. "Collaboration of this nature is a true testament that the Albany community cares about the education of our children. It makes me proud to think that someday these students will be able to tell their children they saw, in person, the Emancipation Proclamation, and all of us will have made that possible."

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

To find out more information about the Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation visit the New York State Library's web site, http://www.nysl.nysed.gov/library/features/ep/.

One of the nation's leading research libraries, the New York State Library has served New Yorkers, state government and researchers from throughout the United States for over 180 years. It is the largest state library in the nation and the only state library to qualify for membership in the Association of Research Libraries. The Library's research collection of more than 20 million items includes major holdings in law, medicine, the social sciences, education, American and New York State history and culture, the pure sciences and technology. The New York State Library provides leadership and support to some 7000 libraries and library systems throughout the state; maintains a Talking Book and Braille Library that serves more than 39,000 New Yorkers; offers 24-hour access to an online catalog of more than 20 million research items; and provides New Yorkers statewide with access to state-of-the-art databases via NOVEL, New York's first virtual library. The New York State Library is located in the Cultural Education Center of the Empire State Plaza in Albany. For information call 518/474-5355 or go to www.nysl.nysed.gov.

(ALBANY, NEW YORK) Abraham Lincoln scholar Harold Holzer will present a lecture during the evening of Nov. 9 as part of an event highlighting a two-day exhibition of Lincoln’s preliminary Emancipation Proclamation at the New York State Museum.

Holzer will speak at 8 p.m. in the Huxley Theater about “Lincoln and Liberty: Re-assessing the Preliminary Proclamation in the Age of Spielberg.” Author of the new book “Emancipating Lincoln,” Holzer will explore the ever-changing reputation of Lincoln’s Emancipation Proclamation from controversial and revolutionary order, to talismanic trophy, to maligned and misunderstood fraud — and back again to icon. The talk will come at the moment of the release of Steven Spielberg’s movie, “Lincoln,” which explores Lincoln’s concurrent roles as politician, peacemaker, and liberator.

The Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation will be on display in the Museum lobby on Nov.9-10 from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. as part of the exhibition entitled The First Step to Freedom: Abraham Lincoln’s Preliminary Emancipation Proclamation. The preliminary Emancipation Proclamation is the only surviving version of the document in Lincoln’s handwriting. The exhibition, which includes historical background and interpretation of the document, marks the sesquicentennial of the preliminary Emancipation Proclamation and has traveled to eight other cities across New York state this fall.

A related exhibition, An Irrepressible Conflict: The Empire State in the Civil War, is open at the State Museum through September 22, 2013 in Exhibition Hall. This 7,000-square foot exhibition commemorates the 150th anniversary of the Civil War and chronicles the pivotal role New York State played in the war. Support for this exhibition is provided by RBC Wealth Management.

“To hear Harold Holzer speak is to be in the presence of Abraham Lincoln,” said State Museum Director Mark Schaming. “His programs about Lincoln are incredibly enlightening as he brings the history of Lincoln to life. We are thrilled to have Harold Holzer at the State Museum at a time when we are reflecting on Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation and how he is understood today.”

Holzer is the past co-chairman of the U. S. Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Commission, chairman of the succeeding Abraham Lincoln Bicentennial Foundation, and the author, co-author, or editor of 42 books on Lincoln and the Civil War era. During the past 35 years, Holzer has also written more than 500 articles for both scholarly and popular publications, and has contributed chapters to 30 additional books. He appears frequently on C-SPAN, PBS, the History Channel, and other television networks. A former journalist and political and government press secretary, Holzer has served as a senior executive of the Metropolitan Museum of Art since 1992, currently as senior vice president for government relations and public affairs.

Established in 1836, the State Museum is a program of the State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue adjacent to the Empire State Plaza in Albany, the Museum is open Tuesday through Sunday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company (ESDC) will premiere a dance created exclusively for the New York State Museum’s carousel during Family Fun Weekend’s celebration of dance May 15-16 at the Museum.

“Dancing in the Museum” is the theme of the free event, which will be held from 1 to 4 p.m. both days. It also will include other dance programs, participatory creative movement, storytelling workshops and arts and crafts activities.

The event will kick off with a performance of “Celtic Footprints,” in the Clark Auditorium at 1:15 p.m. both Saturday and Sunday. Choreographer and Artistic Director Ellen Sinopoli, storyteller Bairbre McCarthy and ESDC dancers will take visitors on a journey, weaving stories with song and dance. They will follow the footprints of the Celts from Central Europe to Scotland, Wales and Ireland and then across the Atlantic to Appalachia. Stories will include the “Legend of the Swans”; the “Adventures of Jack” (beyond the beanstalk); the “Tale of Norouas,” the Northwest Wind; and the humorous yarn of “How Marika Got Her Story.” “Celtic Footprints” is made possible through support from Capital Region Living Magazine/Melissa and Douglas Hahn Charitable Trust, Stewart’s Shops, City of Albany, L&P Media and the Egg.

On both days, from 2:30-3 p.m. and 3:15-3:45 p.m., Sinopoli and McCarthy will offer participatory creative movement and storytelling workshops for children at the Huxley Theater. There will also be three performances, both days, of the carousel dance at the Carousel, on the Museum’s fourth floor, at 2:30, 3 p.m. and 3:30 p.m.

The performances and programs of the Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company are made possible, in part, through support from the New York State Council on the Arts.

The Ellen Sinopoli Dance Company is in its 18th season as the resident company of The Egg. ESDC shares its work with diverse audiences through concerts, residencies, workshops and educational outreach, seeking to enrich the community by enhancing the appreciation, understanding and experience of contemporary performing arts.

Ellen Sinopoli has choreographed 65 new works since ESDC’s formation in 1991 and has received choreographic commissions from The Arts Center of the Capital Region (Troy), The Egg, St. Cecilia Orchestra, Saratoga City Ballet, Schenectady Symphony Orchestra, The Arts Center (Saratoga), Schenectady Museum and Union College. Sinopoli is on the teaching faculty of Russell Sage College and Siena College.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the State Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY – The New York State Museum will celebrate Charles Darwin’s 200th birthday this February with an innovative evolution series -- “Cooking the Tree of Life” – that includes a recipe contest and cooking demonstrations.

Each demonstration in the weekly series will pair a local chef with a biologist, and the two will prepare a meal, providing both the culinary and scientific perspective. Each menu will focus on a different branch of the Tree of Life – vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and fungi. The free programs will be held each Wednesday, beginning Feb. 4, at 7 p.m. in the Clark Auditorium. On Feb. 11, there will be a cake served in honor of the 200th anniversary of Darwin’s birthday.

The Museum also is sponsoring a “Cooking the Tree of Life Recipe Contest,” with submissions due February 2. Contestants are invited to submit a recipe focusing on the ingredients from one of the branches of the tree of life -- vertebrates, invertebrates, plants and fungi. Recipes should include a description of why the dish is biologically interesting. For example, the ingredients might be good examples of artificial selection, illustrate a great amount of biodiversity, or highlight some adaptation that allows a particular species to survive and thrive (e.g. why some animals have white meat vs. dark meat).

The top submission will be featured in a live cooking demonstration at the State Museum in February. Also, the winner will be filmed preparing a featured dish at the U.S. Foodservice test kitchen. This video will be viewable through the State Museum website after the event. Submissions should be sent to rkays@mail.nysed.gov by February 2.

The February demonstrations are:

• February 4, vertebrates: Chef Tony Destratis of Lake George Club will use a combination of familiar and unfamiliar vertebrates to prepare a meal using meat. Dr. Roland Kays, the Museum’s curator of mammals, will assist.
• February 11, invertebrates: Chef David Britton from Saratoga’s Springwater Bistro will try to set a world record for the most diverse meal ever prepared since invertebrates are the most varied group of life on earth. Dr. Jason Cryan, a Museum entomologist, will help steer the menu away from the creepy-crawlies eaten on extreme reality shows and toward the more appetizing branches of this part of the Tree of Life (think lobster).
• February 18, plants: Chef Timothy Warnock, corporate chef for U.S. Foodservice, will use ingredients from across the botanical Tree of Life to try to create the most biodiverse meal anyone has seen. Dr. George Robinson, professor at the University of Albany, will guide the audience through the 500 million years of plant life.
• February 25, yeast and fungi: Chef Paul Parker from Chez Sophie plans to create one of the most unusual meals of this series, promising a variety of tastes to match the diversity of life represented in this category, which ranges from wine, to bread, to mushrooms, to corn smut. Cornell University’s Dr. George Hulder, author of the book “Magical Mushrooms, Mischievous Molds,” will offer the evolutionary color commentary as he helps chop and stir the meal.

For more information, and to view You Tube videos on the “Cooking the Tree of Life” programs, visit the Museum website.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. The State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY – Intelligent design in the classroom will be one of the topics discussed as part of a series of free weeknight February lectures on evolution commemorating the birthday of Charles Darwin at the New York State Museum.

The debate over teaching evolution and/or intelligent design in the classroom rages on in more than 20 states across the country. State Museum biologist and evolution lecturer Dr. Jason Cryan will discuss this controversy in an analysis of current events on February 15th.

The Museum will celebrate Darwin’s Feb. 12th birthday on Wednesday, Feb. 8th with a cake and commemorative lecture by Dr. Martin Wikelski, associate professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at Princeton University. Dr. Wikelski’s lecture topic is “Is Bigger Better? The Evolution of Galapagos Marine Iguanas.” Body size is one of the most important characteristics of an animal. Dr. Wikelski will describe his discovery that some populations are ten times heavier than others. This is a story that involves shrinking animals, illicit sex, and even a major oil spill.

All lectures will be on Wednesdays at 7 p.m. in the Museum Theater. Free event parking is next to the Museum.

Other lecture topics are:

? “10 Things You Didn’t Know You Already Knew About Evolution” on February 22. From sex, to food, to pets, many aspects of everyday life are shaped by principles so obvious that their evolutionary background may be unnoticed. Dr. Roland Kays, curator of mammals at the State Museum, will review the science behind ten of these surprising situations.

?|“The Dark Side of Common Loons” on March 1. Common loons are beautiful, considered symbols of wilderness waters, and the ideal parents. However, Wildlife Pathologist Ward Stone of the NY State Department of Environmental Conservation will describe their “dark side” that results in widespread wounding and some deaths in male and female loons and chicks. The potential evolutionary advantage of this extreme aggressive loon behavior will be discussed.

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The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Founded in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. The State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, N.Y. - Eyewitness accounts and images from the Civil War diary of Union soldier and Confederate prisoner of war Robert Knox Sneden will go on display at the New York State Museum from October 5 through December 31. "Eye of the Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Sneden," organized by the Virginia Historical Society in Richmond, Virginia, showcases nearly 100 watercolors, maps, and excerpts from Sneden's diary that capture, in vivid detail, the brutality of war and the horrors of imprisonment, including at Andersonville. The entire Sneden collection -- a 5,000-page memoir and 1,000 watercolors -- represents the largest collection of Civil War art ever produced by a single soldier or sailor. Many of the images are the only known depictions of places and events, especially those of the inside of Confederate prison camps.

The current new nationwide tour of the exhibition, which begins at the New York State Museum, contains 90 small watercolors from the illustrated memoir, many exhibited publicly for the first time. In addition, the state museum is delving into its own collection of Civil War art, and is exhibiting drawings by Edward Lamson Henry and watercolors by John G. Fay. Henry, who was one of the country's most popular and prolific genre artists at the end of the 19th century, served briefly as a captain's clerk aboard a Union quartermaster's supply transport on the James River in Virginia. In a series of penciled "War Sketches" and pastel crayon studies he documented behind-the-lines scenes of a federal occupation force during the siege of Petersburg. His images of the confiscated, fortified plantation houses of Westover and Berkeley combine, with studies of the sprawling Union supply depot at City Point, to chronicle a non-combat side of soldiering important to a fuller understanding of the events of the period.

Six watercolors by Captain John G. Fay of Albany's Third Regiment, New York Infantry are also included. Fay saw and recorded action along the same area of the James River that E.L. Henry depicted. The "Eye of the Storm" collection of Civil War soldier art is unrivaled in every respect, according to Dr. Charles F. Bryan, Jr., CEO and director of the Virginia Historical Society. Never before have we been invited into the heart and soul of such an important historical event as Sneden does through his personal memoir, says Bryan. The collection is also the basis for the best-selling books, "Eye of the Storm: A Civil War Odyssey" (The Free Press, 2000) and "Images from the Storm" (The Free Press, 2001). Robert Knox Sneden was born in Nova Scotia in 1832, the great-grandson of a loyalist who fled New York at the end of the American Revolution. When he was 18 years old he moved with his parents and siblings to New York City, where he began training for a career in architecture and engineering, two professions in great demand in the teeming metropolis. At the outbreak of the Civil War, his business address was listed as 50 Wall Street, in the heart of the city's financial and commercial district.

Shortly after the Confederate attack on Fort Sumter, Sneden was appointed civilian assistant quartermaster of the newly formed 40th New York Volunteers or Mozart Regiment, named by Mayor Fernando Wood to recognize the Mozart Hall political faction of the city's Democratic Party. Sneden outfitted the 40th during its training in Yonkers and watched as the unit left for Washington in July 1861. By September, Sneden was formally enlisted in the 40th, first serving as a soldier, drilling, going out on picket, and seeing a few skirmishes. In 1862, Sneden parlayed his talent for sketching into a coveted appointment as a mapmaker at corps headquarters of the Army of the Potomac.

For nearly two years, Sneden was in a singular position to see many of the Civil War's greatest campaigns firsthand, including the Peninsula Campaign and the vicious fighting of the Seven Days, as well as the second battle of Bull Run. On the evening of November 26, 1863, Sneden was captured by the celebrated Confederate Colonel John Singleton Mosby. Pistol-whipped and wounded, Sneden was first led to prison in Richmond, Virginia. Held in some of the worst and most infamous Confederate prisons of the war, Sneden continued to document his experience. He hid his dramatic pencil sketches in his shoes or sewed them in his coat and hat so that prison guards would not take them. His depictions of captivity are disturbing and detailed, showing scenes of hunger, fear, and desperation.

Sneden returned to Brooklyn at Christmastime 1864 only to find that he had been presumed missing or dead. Permanently disabled by his 13 months in prison, he used his time to turn his pencil sketches into watercolors. Although Sneden initially sketched many of his drawings while he was in battle, most were put into a finished state after the fighting stopped. Sneden devoted the decades after the war to creating a vast illustrated memoir documenting, in minute detail, the most significant experiences of his life. He died on September 18, 1918 at the Soldier's and Sailor's Home in Bath, New York. Unmarried and without children, he once told a local historian, "I leave no posterity, but a good war record." In 1994, four tattered scrapbook albums, containing some 500 vivid Civil War watercolor drawings and maps by Union soldier Robert Knox Sneden, were consigned to an art dealer who specializes in southern works. The dealer approached the Virginia Historical Society, whose curators were curious, but skeptical. Upon examining the sketches, the curators realized they were looking at a remarkable collection of artwork that had dropped from sight for many decades, languishing in a Connecticut bank vault since the Great Depression.

The Virginia Historical Society acquired the collection, and began to look into sketchy details of Sneden's life, which eventually led to contact with the great-grandson of Robert Sneden's brother, who lived in upstate New York. It turned out that he was in possession of five volumes of an illustrated diary/memoir, stored for years in a mini-rental bin in Arizona. The 5,000-page memoir, containing hundreds more watercolors, was purchased by the Virginia Historical Society, which initiated a two-year tour of sketches for the scrapbook albums to museums nationwide.

The New York State Museum, a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education, was founded on a tradition of scientific inquiry. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

N Y S M

The New York State Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

ALBANY, N.Y. - The New York State Museum will host a performance of Civil War songs, a two-day encampment and review of Civil War art this fall in connection with its exhibition, "Eye of the Storm: The Civil War Drawings of Robert Knox Sneden."

The "Eye of the Storm" exhibition will be at the museum October 5th through December 31. The programs include:

Rally 'Round the Flag: A 77th NY Regimental Balladeers Music Gathering
Saturday, October 19, 2 p.m. 
From 1861 to 1865, over 600,000 New York volunteers saw their national, regimental, and unit banners hallowed by the baptism of battlefield fire. The 77th NY Regimental Balladeers pay tribute to New York soldiers of the Civil War and their battle flags in song and spoken word. Proceeds from the sale of their CD "Rally 'Round the Flag" will benefit the New York Battle Flag Preservation Project.

Civil War Camp Life
Saturday, November 2 and Sunday, November 3, 1-4 p.m.
Members of the 125th New York Regiment recreate a Civil War encampment in the museum providing insight into a soldier's daily life.

Civil War Art at the New York State Museum: The Henry and Fay Collections
Wednesday, November 20, 7 p.m.
Ronald Burch, senior historian and curator of art and architecture, will review the museum's collection of artwork by Edward Lamson Henry and John G. Fay. As young men, both witnessed Civil War action along Virginia's James River. Henry captured scenes of federal troop activity in 1864. A year earlier, Captain John G. Fay of Albany's Third Regiment, New York Infantry, saw and recorded action in the same area. Henry's sketches and Fay's watercolors will be on exhibit as an adjunct to the "Eye of the Storm" exhibition featuring the Civil War watercolors of Robert K. Sneden from the collection of the Virginia Historical Society.

The New York State Museum, a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education, was founded on a tradition of scientific inquiry. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

N Y S M

*Color slides are available by calling 518-486-2003.

The New York State Museum is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. daily.

ALBANY, N.Y. – Through the Eyes of Others: African Americans and Identity in American Art, organized by the Fenimore Art Museum in Cooperstown, N.Y., opens September 8 at the New York State Museum as the next exhibition in the Bank of America Great Art Series.

On view through January 6, 2010 in the Museum’s West Gallery, the exhibition is the 21st installment of the Bank of America Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, which brings art from New York State’s leading art museums and collections to the State Museum. This exhibition juxtaposes 19th-century views of American life with contemporary interpretations by prominent African American artists to examine how Americans have constructed and interpreted race. Together, the more than 50 visual images and artifacts make it easier to understand the role of race in American culture in the past and the legacy that attitudes about race bring to bear in the present.

Many of the works were amassed by 19th-century collector Stephen C. Clark and the Fenimore Art Museum. Additional selections were culled from various public and private collections, including those of the New York State Museum. The exhibition was curated by Gretchen Sullivan Sorin, director and distinguished professor of the Cooperstown Graduate Program.

The art of the Fenimore Art Museum – largely a 19th-century collection -- includes many images of African Americans that fit within two categories. Most of the images illustrate how the nation perceived its black countrymen. They felt, as W.E.B. DuBois, African American writer and intellectual, wrote in 1903, as if they were always looking at themselves “through the eyes of others.”

The portraits commissioned by black sitters, or works of art produced by black artists, offer viewers an alternative perspective. In this second category, these self-presentations, some of which are anonymous, show individual voices and distinct personalities.

Sorin states that "since our perceptions of one another are grounded in that which we see, this exhibition -- a new look at the collections of the Fenimore Art Museum -- in concert with the work of a wide variety of African American artists -- is designed as an exploration of visual culture to start the conversation anew. Conversations about race are uncomfortable and often avoided or denounced as no longer necessary. But such conversations are the tools that we Americans use to collectively and continuously expand our democracy."

Through the Eyes of Others contains a lithograph by Norman Rockwell, works by celebrated artists such as painter Edward Lamson Henry and sculptor John Rogers, and African American artists including Kyra Hicks, Whitfield Lovell, and Faith Ringgold. Also on display are drawings, photographs, woodcuts, art objects, books and ephemera.

One notable artifact from the Fenimore Art Museum is the Van Bergen Overmantel, ca. 1733, an oil painting on cherry wood that was part of a paneled fireplace wall in a Dutch farmhouse in Greene County. The overmantel defines the social hierarchy in Dutch New York, depicting both black and white servants. Unlike the black servants, the white indentured servants gained their freedom once the indentured ended.

Creative Art Day, a free program on November 21 from 1 to 3 p.m., is planned to complement the exhibition. It is designed to encourage families to participate in artful activities. For more information call 518-473-7154 or email psteinba@mail.nysed.gov to reserve a space.

Through the Eyes of Others is funded in part by the Institute for Museum and Library Services. The New York State Museum also expresses its gratitude to Bank of America, the New York State Senate and New York State Assembly for making this exhibition possible. Additional support is provided by the Times Union and CBS6.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY – As part of the continuing Museum Series, the New York State Museum will present weekly lectures through mid-December focusing on the “Adirondacks: Research and Collections at the State Museum.”

The lectures will be presented by Museum scientists and curators beginning Wednesday, September 28th and continue through December 14th. All lectures are free and take place in the Museum Theater at 7 p.m. There are no programs on October 12 and November 23. Free parking is available next to the Museum.

Lecture topics and dates are:

September 28 “1.3 Billion Years of Adirondack Geology.” Beginning with a massive collision of ancient North America with the Amazon heartland, State Paleontologist Dr. Ed Landing will relate modern scenery, lakes and roads in the Adirondacks to 1.3 billion years of geologic history.

Wednesday, October 5 “Summer Sketches: Rufus Grider at Piseco Lake.” Senior Historian Ron Burch will present the Museum’s collection of pen-and-ink sketches of Piseco Lake by Canajoharie drawing instructor Rufus Alexander Grider (1817–1900).

Wednesday, October 19 “Largemouth Bass: The End of Angling as We Know It.” Dr. Robert Daniels, curator of ichthyology, will detail the effect that a stocked largemouth bass population has had in several lakes in the Adirondack Park and explore the changes that have occurred throughout the park from stocking non-native fish. Wednesday, October 26 “Obscure Beauty: Wild Orchids in the Adirondacks.” Curious features of the biology of orchids result in contrasts that created more than three dozen species of this primarily tropical family in our region. Dr. Charles Sheviak, curator of botany, will provide a photo-introduction to the plants and their habitats.

Wednesday, November 2 “Mining History of the Adirondacks.” Mining has been an integral part of the Adirondack economy for two centuries. New York State Geologist Dr. William Kelly presents an overview of mineral extraction in the North Country.

Wednesday, November 9 “The Adirondack Great Camps and Their Furnishings.” The environment of wilderness living influenced the design of both structures and furnishings at camps constructed in the Adirondacks by wealthy families during the Gilded Age. Curator of Decorative Arts John Scherer will explore the phenomena of the Great Camps and their rustic furnishings.

Wednesday, November 16 “Adirondack Lake Acidification: Fact and Fiction.” Dr. Clifford Siegfried, director of the State Museum, will explore some of the common myths about acid lakes (e.g. “acid lakes are dead lakes”) and present research findings that illustrate the complex nature of acid lakes.

Wednesday, November 30 “Top 10 Little-Known Facts About Black Flies.” Museum scientist Dr. Daniel Molloy will serve as a guide to the world of black flies in the Adirondack Mountains and beyond.

Wednesday, December 7 “Adirondack Minerals—Tools to Determine the Composition and Evolution of Fluids in the Crust.” Fluids are important components of the geological processes. The presence of fluorine, chlorine, boron and water in the fluids is important because they contribute to the alteration, dissolution and transport mechanism of the elements. Dr. Marian Lupulescu, curator of minerals, will discuss volatiles and the valuable data provided about the buildup of rocks and ores in the Adirondack massif.

Wednesday, December 14 “Adirondack Wildlife—500 Dynamic Years.”

Adirondack wildlife populations have seen great changes over the past 500 years, ranging from extinction to overpopulation. Dr. Roland Kays, curator of mammals, will review these dynamics, drawing from historical records and the most recent field research.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, NY – “Life in the Winter” is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next

Family Fun Weekend, January 6-7.

The program, which is presented free of charge, takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both

days and will acquaint young people with the ways in which animals adapt and survive

in the coldest weather. Activities take place in Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s first

floor.

Throughout the day, the Museum’s visitor services staff will engage children in an

interactive “Stay Warm’’ experience, using insulated mittens that help demonstrate ways

in which nature helps animals stay warm. They will use examples from Museum

collections to illustrate how mammals’ coats change to camouflage and protect them in a

snowy environment.

Participants can make and decorate a foam snowflake to hang in a window and also

make a pine cone bird feeder that is covered in lard and sprinkled with bird seed, which

they can hang on a tree at home. A 3:30 p.m.story time, both days, will feature tales

from winter.

A scavenger hunt and coloring activities will also be offered and children will get a

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Packet, filled with coloring sheets and puzzles, to take home.

From 2- 3 p.m. a “Winter Sky” show is scheduled in the inflatable Star Lab

Planetarium. The show, which will be located in the Carole F. Huxley Theater (formerly

known as the Museum Theater), is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket at

the information desk in the lobby. The Star Lab will display the stars and constellations

that are typically visible at this time of year.

Family Fun Weekends for 2007 are presented by Fidelis Care NY. The weekends

offer theme-based family activities on the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York

StateEducation Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in

Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and

Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling

(518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, NY – Families and friends of abducted children and other missing persons from across the country will gather for the New York State Museum’s Family Safety Weekend April 1-2 to talk about their own experiences and to teach other families how to prevent such tragedies. John and Magi Bish, whose teenage daughter Molly, was abducted and found dead three years later, will be the keynote speakers Sunday at 2 p.m. in the Museum Theater. Speakers will also include Doug and Mary Lyall, the parents of SUNY Albany student Suzanne Lyall, who has been missing since March 2, 1998.

As with the Museum’s Family Fun Weekend, usually held the first weekend of every month, there will be music, crafts and educational activities available for children.

Prior to the keynote speech, a ceremony will be held in the Museum Theater on Sunday, beginning at 1 p.m. with Assembly Minority Leader James Tedisco as master of ceremonies. New York State Trooper Dan Hart will play the bagpipes and the National Anthem will be sung by Brittany Kissinger of Ballston Spa, who formerly starred as “Annie’’ on Broadway. Veronica Frear, mother of missing 17-year-old Scotia resident Craig Frear, will light the Hope Candle.

The Lyalls are scheduled to speak at 1:20 about the Center for Hope, the Ballston Spa-based non-profit organization they founded. This will be followed by remarks from New York State Congressman John Sweeney, New York Senate Majority Leader Joseph Bruno, Albany Mayor Jerry Jennings and District Attorneys David Soares of Albany County and Patricia DeAngelis of Rensselaer County.

The Lyalls will then present the Hope Award to Chauncey Parker, commissioner of the state Department of Criminal Justice Services (DCJS). Following that, Brittany Kissinger will perform “Whispers,’’ a song Brittany’s brother Zac wrote and dedicated to Brittany’s former

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babysitter, Suzanne Lyall.

John and Magi Bish, whose daughter’s remains were found in 2003 not far from where she had worked as a lifeguard, will discuss safety rules to teach children. The Bish’s started the Molly Bish Lifeguard Foundation to promote child safety. The foundation lobbies for laws and encourages the use of child identification kits, through which parents can keep on file updated photographs and professionally made fingerprints of their children.

Following the Bish’s presentation, families of missing children from New York State, New England, Michigan, Maryland and Washington will participate in a ceremony to honor their loved ones.

On Saturday, musical performances will be featured from 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.. Performing will be Brittany and Zac Kissinger of “Tentacles Heavenward,” Michael Yates, Soul Session featuring Garland Nelson, and bluegrass group Happy Balky and the Good Livin’.

From 1 to 3 p.m. Saturday children can create fingerprint animals and whistle holders. Throughout the weekend, a group called “radKIDS” (for “Resisting Aggression Defensively,’’) will demonstrate how to deal safely with a threatening stranger.

On both days the New York State Police, the DCJS and other organizations will hand out literature and answer parents’ questions. Jim Viola, a filmmaker and husband of Patricia Viola, who has been missing from Bogota, New Jersey since 2001, will present several short videos about a variety of missing person’s cases.

In partnership with DCJS, the Museum also plans to unveil on Saturday a new kiosk that will allow visitors to access information about missing persons.

On April 6, a groundbreaking will be held for the New York State Missing Persons Remembrance in the Empire State Plaza’s Memorial Park, adjacent to the State Museum. State officials will join families and friends of missing persons at that site on that day, which Governor George Pataki has designated Missing Persons Day in New York State. The Remembrance will be constructed on the southeast corner of Madison and Swan Streets and will include an eternal flame to “light the way home’’ for the missing. It was created in partnership with the Lyalls and their non-profit organization – the Center for Hope. The Lyalls also helped to organize the Museum’s Family Safety Weekend events.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Department of Education. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New

Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, NY – The New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, Feb. 4 -5th, will focus on “Birds, Butterflies and Bats’’ and teach visitors how scientists study wild mammals and present their discoveries.

Activities both days take place from 1 to 4 p.m. and are free of charge. “Mammals Revealed,” a video in which the Museum’s curator of mammals, Dr. Roland Kays, talks about how scientists locate and examine secretive creatures, will play continuously.

At 1:30 and 2:30 p.m., a “Winter Sky” show is scheduled in the Star Lab Planetarium in the Museum Theater. Shows are limited to groups of 30 and visitors must obtain a free ticket at the information desk in the lobby.

Throughout the day, visitors may also view a unique display of birds, bats and butterflies from Museum collections and learn the differences in how bats and a birds use their wings. Children can make a butterfly sun catcher and take home a packet filled with animal puzzles and 16 pages of information on birds, bats and butterflies, as well as sheets they can color. Other events include animal-themed scavenger hunt, face painting and a 3:30 p.m. story time. All activities, except the planetarium, take place in Bird Hall.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Department of Education. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New

Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, NY – A New York State Museum scientist has participated in a study measuring body mass changes in squirrels over the last 20,000 years, which has led to some surprising conclusions that may help scientists better understand the effect global warming and other environmental factors could have on various animal species in the future.

A paper about the study, published in the April issue of the Journal of Biogeography, reports that body size in squirrels changed significantly over the last 20,000 years – from the peak of the last Ice Age to today. But, they determined that precipitation, rather than temperature, was the main factor affecting the change. Scientists generally have believed that temperature was one of the most significant factors explaining body size variations in mammals.

Dr. Robert S. Feranec, curator of vertebrate paleontology at the State Museum, co-authored the paper, along with main author Jessica Blois, a doctoral candidate in the Department of Biological Sciences at Stanford University, and Elizabeth Hadly, an associate professor in the same department.

Their study measuring fossil and modern ground squirrel populations in California focused on change in body size because that is a common way in which species, particularly mammals, respond to environmental variations. California ground squirrels (Spermophilius beecheyi) were chosen because their geographical distribution spans a large latitudinal range and includes a wide variety of habitats and climates. The variation in the squirrels’ environment is also reflected by behavioral variability since not all of them hibernate each year in some parts of the range. Also, the S. beecheyi species is well represented in the fossil record at one location in northern California, giving the scientists the opportunity to investigate body-size variation through both time and space.

After determining that the body size of California ground squirrels in northern California is significantly larger today than it was 20,000 years ago, the scientists compared those measurements to local temperature, precipitation, vegetation type, sex and the number of similar species in the area.

Creating a model of the relationship between body size and the environmental and other factors, the scientists discovered that the ground squirrels are affected more by the amount of precipitation, than temperature or other factors.

“This study shows the power of integrating fossil and modern data,” said Jessica Blois. “Both modern and fossil data were needed to get an accurate picture of population dynamics in this species.”

“This study is important not only because it integrates the study of animals over space and time,” said Dr. Feranec, “but it helps us to understand what may happen to different species subjected to global warming. Precipitation and other factors may be more significant than just temperature change.”

The Journal of Biogeography paper is available online at http://www.blackwell-

synergy.com/doi/full/10.1111/j.1365-2699.2007.01836.x

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Department of Education. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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The New York State Museum, in collaboration with Vocational and Educational Services for Individuals with Disabilities (VESID), is hosting the Capital District's first Disability Film Festival on October 14, 15 and 16th as part of a series of October events celebrating Disability Awareness Month.

Former TV anchor Ed Dague, who was forced to retire from WNYT-TV in Albany because of his own disability, will open the festival with a keynote address on Thursday, October 14th at 6 p.m. He will talk about contemporary disability issues, his own personal struggle with disability and the impact on his work and lifestyle. This will be followed by the presentation of "A Beautiful Mind" (close captioned), at 7 p.m.

The rest of the schedule includes "Whose Life Is This Anyway?" Oct. 15 at 7 p.m., "Finding Nemo," (close captioned), Oct. 16 at 11 a.m. and "Children of a Lesser God"(close captioned), Oct. 16 at 3 p.m. All films are free and open to the public.

Prior to each film the audience will be asked to consider thought-provoking discussion points. Following the film, there will be a brief interactive discussion led by staff from the Capital District Center for Independence and the Independent living Center of the Hudson Valley. There will be assistive listening devices available.

The Disability Film Festival is part of a series of events planned throughout the month of October to celebrate Disability Awareness Month. The film festival celebrates disability pride, diversity, culture and the natural role disability plays in our lives. Other events include Disability Mentoring Day during the week of October 18th, a celebration of National Disability Employment Awareness Month recognition awards on October 26th, Recreation Opportunity Day on October 30th and other activities. For further information on these events call Cindy Biance at the Capital District Center for Independence at 518/459-6422.

The Capital District group coordinating these events includes representatives of VESID's Independent Living Services program, VESID Capital District office, Department of Health's Disability and Health program, Capital District Transportation Authority, Capital District Center for Independence, Independent Living Center of the Hudson Valley, Office of the Advocate for People with Disabilities, Quad Design Inc. and the Developmental Disability Planning Council.

VESID and its network of 36 Independent Living Centers partner to help the University of the State of New York and the public and private sectors integrate disability rights and services into all aspects of community life to promote the capacity of people with disabilities to live self-determined lives.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

ALBANY, NY – “Native Peoples of New York” is the theme for the next Family Fun Day on Saturday, June 20 at the New York State Museum.

Family Fun Day will take place from 1-4 pm in front of Discovery Place. Activities, which are free of charge, include a scavenger hunt with prizes, a coloring table, and a clay crafting activity that participants can bring home. The Native Peoples teaching cart will be available to explore and learn from, and take home informational packets will also be available.

The Native Peoples gallery features a life-size replica of an Iroquois longhouse, as well as an Ice Age exhibit and a collection of Native American art.

Family Fun Day offers theme-based family activities on the third Saturday of the month during the summer. The full weekend schedule will resume in the fall.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518)

474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – The New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, Nov. 3 – 4, will focus on “Early Settlers.”

The Family Fun Weekend, presented by Fidelis Care, takes place from 1 – 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in and around Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s First floor. Young people will learn about the state’s colonial settlers and the soldiers who protected them. The program will also provide a glimpse of how people in the 18th century endured harsh upstate winters.

On Saturday, there will be an encampment of re-enactors of British Army units that served in and around the Capital Region during the French and Indian War. They will appear as they might have in 1758 and play the role of two units – the 55th Light Infantry and the Grenadiers of the British Army. The 55th landed in Albany and marched up Broadway to Schuyler Flats in Menands, where they camped before heading to Lake George and setting sail to attack Fort Ticonderoga. Commanded by Capt. Chris Cook of Springfield MA, Infantry re-enactors will demonstrate daily chores and drills and show how they prepared food and made winter gear.

Also Saturday afternoon, Anne Clothier, education coordinator for the Shaker Heritage Society, will present “History of the Shakers in New York State and the Albany Area.’’ She will bring the audience closer to Shaker life by showing objects they can touch and use.

From 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. Saturday, singer and songwriter Dan Berggren will perform Adirondacks-inspired songs and stories set to music. Berggren’s appearance is made possible through the assistance of Old Songs, Inc., a Guilderland-based non-profit organization devoted to keeping traditional music alive.

At 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. both afternoons, a presentation in the Museum’s inflatable Star Lab Planetarium will show how early settlers used the sky to navigate and how the star’s positions helped them set their daily schedule of activities. The show, which will be located in the Carole F. Huxley Theater, is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket at the information desk in the lobby.

Throughout the weekend, young people can make an old-fashioned sheep, like the colonial children made. There will also be a scavenger hunt and participants can take home a packet filled with coloring sheets, word searches, puzzles and other activities.

Family Fun Weekends, presented by Fidelis Care, offer theme-based family activities and are held the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – “Life in the Winter” is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, January 19-20.

The Family Fun Weekend is held from 1 to 4 p.m. Activities are free of charge and most are held in and around Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s first floor.

However, January’s event kicks off on Saturday morning with a guided snowshoe walk at the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center in Delmar. Participants must register by January 11 by calling Nicole at 474-0575. (The snowshoe walk will be held on Saturday only.)

Both afternoons, Museum visitors can participate in a winter-themed craft project and children will receive an activities packet to bring home. At 1 p.m. and 3 p.m., the Museum will open its Star Lab inflatable planetarium in the Carole F. Huxley Theater. The Star Lab will display the constellations that are typically visible at this time of year. The show is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket at the information desk in the lobby.

On Sunday only, at 2 p.m., Nancy Payne, a professional storyteller, will tell stories of life in the winter. A long time teacher, Payne appears in schools and also uses stories as a staff educator at the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center. She specializes in stories that center on life in the late 1800s.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities once a month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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ALBANY, NY -- Drawing in part from The Museum of Modern Art's ModernStarts exhibition, Figure and Form, Rodin to Matisse: Sculpture and Works on Paper is a challenging exploration of the beginning of modernism.

The exhibition, which runs from March 2 through May 6, 2001, in the New York State Museum's West Gallery, is the fifth installment of the Fleet Great Art Exhibition and Education Program. It is also MoMA's second appearance in the successful series that brings great art from New York City art museums to Albany. The first Fleet Great Art show was Pop Art: Selections from MoMA, which ran from Feb. 26 to May 2, 1999. ModernStarts, part of the MoMA2000 project, was on view at MoMA from October 7, 1999, to March 14, 2000.

"This series has been a great success for us, so successful that Fleet has decided to continue its commitment to funding the program for another year, extending the series into 2002," State Museum Director Cliff Siegfried said. "Each exhibition draws in a new crowd of New Yorkers."

Glenn D. Lowry, Director of The Museum of Modern Art, said, "MoMA is again pleased to participate in the Fleet Great Art Series with the State Museum. We are particularly pleased that some of the sculpture in this exhibition will be accessible to blind and visually impaired visitors through our Touch Tour program. This helps us to achieve our mission of making MoMA's renowned collection available to all New Yorkers."

MoMA's Touch Tours, a program that allows blind and visually impaired visitors to actually touch sculpture wearing special gloves, will be available during the exhibition. MoMA educators are training State Museum educators on how to conduct these tours in Albany. MoMA was recently honored by VSA (formerly Very Special Arts) and the Metropolitan Life Foundation for innovations in reaching people with visual disabilities.

Figure and Form features works created from 1880 through 1920 by Auguste Rodin, Henri Matisse, Aristide Maillol, Gaston Lachaise and Alberto Giacometti, and examines the development of modern expression.

"The Museum of Modern Art has loaned us what is probably their most powerful collection of figurative sculpture," said Mark Schaming, the State Museum's Director of Exhibitions. "This is a truly unique opportunity for our visitors to feel the presence of these great works together. "

The exhibition, including 25 sculptures and 17 works on paper, presents a unique opportunity to view such masterpieces as Rodin's superhuman-sized Monument to Balzac, Matisse's Large Seated Nude, and Giacometti's Tall Figure III.

Organized by John Elderfield, Chief Curator at Large, and Elizabeth Levine, Curatorial Assistant, Department of Painting and Sculpture, the exhibition also includes two remarkable series of sculptures, the 1891-97 Rodin studies for Monument to Balzac and the 1910-16 Matisse heads of Jeannette. The presentation of these works and others explores themes of size, representation, and the perceptual and physical composition of sculpture at the beginning of the 20th century.

Mr. Elderfield said, "The works in this exhibition exemplify major tendencies in the development of early modern sculpture, and include landmark works ranging from Rodin's Balzac to Matisse's Backs. MoMA is delighted they are being shown in the New York State Museum as our second appearance in the Fleet Great Art Series."

The sculptors' drawings and other works on paper offer rare glimpses into the creative process. Some are studies for finished sculptures. Others offer a look into the artists' worlds. For example, a series of etchings by Giacometti that was created to illustrate a book on painting details the appearance of his studio, packed with paintings and sculptures.

The largest group of works on paper is by Henri Matisse. They include ink drawings related to The Back I and The Back II. Matisse's Girl with Tulips of 1910 is a fully developed portrait of the same model as that of his heads of Jeannette.

Organized by The Museum of Modern Art, New York, this exhibition was made possible by The Starr Foundation, Agnes Gund and Daniel Shapiro, the Contemporary Exhibition Fund of The Museum of Modern Art, and the National Endowment for the Arts.

The New York State Museum expresses its gratitude to Fleet for generous support of the exhibition series; Senator Roy M. Goodman and the New York State Senate for their support; the Hearst Foundation Inc. for important seed funding and continuing support; Harry Rosenfeld for his vision and dedication to the exhibition series; and First Lady Libby Pataki for her inspiration in bringing great art to all New Yorkers.

N Y S M

Editor's Notes:

• The New York State Museum is open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. It is on Madison Avenue in downtown Albany next to the Empire State Plaza. A donation of $2 per person or $5 per family is appreciated.
• The public may call 518-474-5877 for further information.
• A reception will be held from 6 to 9 p.m. on Tuesday, March 6.
• For images, reporters and editors may contact the Office of Institutional Relations at 518/474-0079 or 486-2003 or send an email to dliquori@mail.nysed.gov

ALBANY, NY – In conjunction with the Rockwell Kent: This is My Own exhibition, the New York State Museum will present the film “Rockwell Kent,” a biographical documentary, on Sunday, May 17.

The three-hour showing is free and will be held from 1 to 4:30 p.m. in the Museum’s Huxley Theater. Filmmaker Frederick Lewis spent over 10 years and thousands of his own money to make the film about Kent, a painter, author, illustrator, adventurer and social activist, who was one of America’s most famous personalities during the 1930s and 1940s.

Lewis not only researched and cataloged hundreds of documents, photographs and letters, but he also traced Kent’s footsteps across the world, following Kent in his many travels, to show how Kent’s experiences inspired his work. Lewis traveled to Greenland, Denmark, Alaska, Russia and Tierra del Fuego, off the tip of the South American mainland, where he rented a sailboat and hired a crew in order to charter the same routes that Kent had taken. Never having sailed before, Kent was unaware that the waters he had chosen are some of the most dangerous in the world. However, he returned with what he considers some of the most amazing footage in the film.

The film shows the human story of Kent in intricate detail, featuring interviews with people who knew him and are now deceased. For those who feel they are already knowledgeable about Kent, the film provides much additional information that was previously unknown, uncovered through in-depth research. For additional information about Kent and his filmmaking adventures visit http://www.tcomschool.ohiou.edu/faculty/lewis.html.

The Museum’s June 27 Creative Art Day program also will focus on Rockwell Kent. The free program invites families to participate in artful activities based on the Kent exhibition. For information on the featured art project call 518-473-7154 or e-mail psteinba@mail.nysed.gov.

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Rockwell Kent: This is My Own is the latest exhibition in the Bank of America’s Great Art Series, and is open until July 5 in the Museum’s West Gallery. The exhibition is the 20th installment of the Bank of America Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, which brings works from New York State’s leading art museums and collections to the State Museum. The exhibition features works from the collection of the Plattsburgh State Art Museum, State University of New York at Plattsburgh, the most complete and balanced collection of Kent’s work in the United States. The collection was established by a gift and bequest from Kent’s wife, Sally Kent Gorton. This exhibition is curated by Cecilia M. Esposito, director of the Plattsburgh State Art Museum.

A critically acclaimed artist who provided the illustrations for such classics as “Moby Dick” and the “Canterbury Tales,” Kent succeeded in multiple endeavors during his lifetime. He was a painter, muralist, illustrator, printmaker, book designer, graphic artist, architect, builder, writer and editor, lecturer, navigator, world traveler and political and social activist.

Kent once said that “art is no more than the shadow cast by a man’s own stature.” This exhibition is unique in the breadth of materials on display, including hundreds of items that chronicle Kent’s life and work, reflecting remarkable personal experiences and a deep sense of moral and political principle. On display are paintings, drawings, prints, books, bookplates, photographs, dinnerware, advertising art and

more.

A DVD of the “Rockwell Kent” film, and the book, “Rockwell Kent: The Art of the Bookplate,” are for sale in the Museum Shop.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – A rare display of Revolutionary War-era artifacts, recently on exhibit at the State Capitol, will be open to the public again on Friday evening, August 3 as part of the New York State Museum’s 1st Friday event.

Freedom’s Treasures,” open from 5 to 9 p.m. at the State Museum, features a collection from the New York State Library, Archives and Museum of some of New York’s most important Revolutionary War-era artifacts that have rarely been seen by the public. The same exhibition was on display at the State Capitol from July 4-6.

The exhibition includes an original draft of George Washington’s Farewell Address, penned in his hand, which was sent to Alexander Hamilton for comment and revision on May 15, 1796. The document is part of the George Washington Collection at the New York State Library and was rescued from the fire that ravaged the State Capitol in 1911.

“Freedom’s Treasures” also will give the public the chance to see a pistol that was given to President Washington by the Marquis de Lafayette and one of General Washington’s dress swords. According to Washington family tradition, the sword was presented to Washington by Frederick the Great, King of Prussia. The sword was purchased by the State of New York directly from Washington’s family in 1871 and is depicted in the Washington portrait that hangs in the United States House of Representatives.

Among the other artifacts included in this exhibition are a portrait of Governor DeWitt Clinton and a writing desk he used. The exhibition also includes the original engrossed (large print) copy of the U.S. Constitution sent to New York State for ratification and the “spy papers” retrieved from British Major John Andre´’s boot that implicated American General Benedict Arnold in the West Point conspiracy. There also is a print of Andre´ crossing the Hudson River (based upon his own drawing of the event). 

Also featured is a bronze bust of George Washington and Washington’s copy of “A Representation of the Cloathing of His Majesty’s Household and of all the Forces upon the Establishments of Great Britain and Ireland” (the uniform book).

The 1st Friday event is free and will include complimentary refreshments. Parking is available in lots on both sides of the Museum and visitors can also ride the Albany City Trolley www.Albany.org to and from the Museum. Many participating galleries, shops and eateries line the route.

Each first Friday of the month Albany’s premier art institutions and galleries – from uptown to downtown, with Center Square in between – open their doors to the public, showcasing current exhibitions and collections.

The Museum began participating in 1st Friday in April. Current exhibitions that have been featured include "Alex Katz" Selections from Whitney Museum of American Art," "Look-Alikes: The Amazing World of Joan Steiner," "Best of SUNY" juried art exhibit and "Beneath the City: An Archaeological Perspective on Albany" in the Charles L. Fisher Gallery.

Future plans for exhibitions open for 1st Fridays at the Museum this year include:
• Sept. 7 – “The World Trade Center: Rescue, Recovery, Response”
• October 5 – “unseenamerica NYS: pictures of working lives taken by working hands”
• Nov. 2 – “Cast Images: American Bronze Sculpture from The Metropolitan Museum of Art” (final exhibition in the 2005-2008 Bank of America Great Art Series) 
More information on 1st Friday is available at www.1stfridayalbany.org.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website. 
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-- The New York State Museum has announced a new three-year installment of the Fleet/Bank of America Great Art Exhibition and Education Program, its groundbreaking exhibition series inaugurated in 1999.

Over the course of 12 exhibitions in six years, the series brought hundreds of master works from New York City institutions to the State Museum. Six major unique art exhibitions will be developed in the next phase, beginning in 2005 through 2007.

"New York State is home to many wonderful cultural institutions," said First Lady Libby Pataki. "The Fleet program enables these institutions to work with each other and bring the best of the best to the State Museum in Albany for everyone to share and enjoy. The Governor and I favored paintings from the Hudson River School movement when he first came to Albany as Governor, but thanks to this program, we have learned to appreciate a greater breadth of art."

The newest installation of the Fleet Great Art series will include three new participating institutions -- the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, the Studio Museum of Harlem and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. These institutions join The Metropolitan Museum of Art, The Museum of Modern Art and the Whitney Museum of American Art for the next round of exhibitions.

"New York State's leading art institutions play a role that is unique to this state by sharing their vast, incomparable collections with the State Museum," said State Education Commissioner Richard Mills. "This exceptional program brings new audiences, including many visiting school children, teachers, college students and families, to experience and enjoy world-class art that might otherwise be unavailable to them."

"We are excited about the expansion of the Great Art program and pleased to be able to continue to bring master works from New York State's finest museums to the millions of visitors who have come to know great art through this series," said State Museum Director Dr. Clifford Siegfried.

The first exhibition in the new series, Extra Ordinary, Art of the Everyday Object, 1945-2004, from the Whitney Museum of American Art, opens in March 2005. The exhibition will explore the ongoing fascination of American artists with common, everyday objects. The works fall roughly into two categories: depictions of objects, and actual objects incorporated into the works. The art also presents a historical record of the culture in which it was created, capturing slices of American life from precise moments in history, and often the implicit commentary of the artist as well. Among the artists that may be included in the exhibition are: Alexander Calder, Christo, Joseph Cornell, Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Jeff Koons, Roy Lichtenstein, Marisol, Claes Oldenburg, Robert Rauschenberg, James Rosenquist, Fred Tomaselli, and Andy Warhol.

"The Fleet/Bank of America Great Art Exhibition and Education Program is all about access," said Ken Colloton, co-president of Fleet/Bank of America's Eastern Upstate New York region. "Tens of thousands of upstate New York school children, and hundreds of thousands of upstate residents, have been able to visit the masterpieces of some of the greatest museums in the world. We are thrilled our partnership with the State Museum has been extended through 2007 and will continue to bring unparalleled exhibits to Albany."

In the past six years, the State Museum has welcomed more than 4 million visitors. Approximately 35,000 school children have participated in the special Fleet/Bank of America Great Art education programs and many thousands through teacher training, college courses and informal visits to the exhibitions series. To date, the Fleet/Bank of America Great Art exhibition series has presented a total of 477 master works, ranging from Pop Art from The Museum of Modern Art, early to mid-century painting and sculpture from the Whitney Museum of American Art, American Impressionism to the current exhibition of French landscape paintings from The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

ALBANY, NY – More than 120 floral displays, food, entertainment and demonstrations will be among the attractions February 22-24 at the New York State Museum’s 17th annual “New York in Boom” fund-raiser for its award-winning after-school programs.

Open from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. Friday through Sunday, the event marks the only time during the year that admission is charged at the Museum. Proceeds benefit the Museum Club and Discovery Squad, the Museum’s award-winning after-school programs. Garden club members, professional designers and floral enthusiasts from across the state will create unique floral arrangements that complement and interpret the museum’s permanent and temporary exhibitions.

The admission fee for “New York in Bloom” is $4 for adults on Friday. On Saturday and Sunday the fee will be $6, which also includes admission to the 15th annual “James Campbell Memorial Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show and Sale.” Admission is free for children 12 and under, accompanied by an adult. Tickets may be purchased at the door.

The event will also feature table arrangements provided by local interior designers and home furnishing stylists, florists and event specialists. Demonstrations and children’s activities will be featured all three days.

There also will be a fresh flower market in the Museum lobby, while supplies last, offering “design your own bouquets” and sales of individual roses, with flowers donated by Seagroatt Floral Co. Inc., Dan Engwer Wholesale and Seagroatt Riccardi, LTD.

Visitors will also see two floral projects created by Museum Club and Discovery Squad members. One will be located in the Black Capital Harlem in the 1920’s gallery and will honor the late Martha Lewis of Albany, a former resident of Harlem. Lewis was a longtime volunteer for “New York in Bloom,” which often was held during the weekend of her birthday, February 24th. She devoted her life to working with young people and was an inspiration to the Museum Club students with whom she worked. Before her retirement, Lewis held several high-level governmental positions in the social and community service fields. The students will decorate a tree with flowers, photos of themselves and messages they write about other people in their lives, like Lewis, who have helped them “bloom.” Visitors will be invited to add their own messages to the tree.

The students’ other project will be located outside of the Look-Alikes: The Amazing World of Joan Steiner exhibition. Taking inspiration from the exhibition, the students will create a playground garden, incorporating real flowers with fantasy flowers created from everyday objects. “Look-Alikes” book author and artist Joan Steiner will also sign books outside of the exhibition. Books may be purchased in the Museum Shop.

Nearby, in Crossroads Gallery, there will be a floral display created by On Thai from Surroundings Floral Studio, with flowers supplied by Seagroatt Riccardi, LTD. The display will be centered around a 1934 green Ford Cabriolet, owned by Dave Mardon of West Sand Lake.

The University Jazz Band will perform outside the Savoy Tea Garden & Café on Sunday. The café will serve tea, coffee, desserts and light luncheon fare, provided by Classe′ Catering. The 1930’s inspired design and florals will be provided by Karen McGowan of Faddegon’s Nursery.

Subway, on the Museum’s fourth floor Terrace Gallery, will also offer food all day Friday through Sunday. Big Don’s Hot Dogs & More and Losee’s Deli will serve food in the Museum’s first floor Student Center from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday.

Nancy Noble Gardner will present a formal demonstration on Photographing Flowers Saturday from 10 to 11 a.m. in the Huxley Theater and answer questions on the topic in Adirondack Hall Friday and Sunday from 10 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. and Saturday, 11:30 a.m. - 3:30 p.m. Other demonstrations are (Friday morning) Sculpting Flowers with Clay; (Friday afternoon) Flower Arranging with Silk, Paper Quilling Flowers; (Saturday morning) Creating and Using Edible Flowers, Creative Use of Various Containers, Creating Stepping Stones; (Saturday afternoon) One Stroke Flower Painting, Creative Entertaining Cruise Ship Style, Hand-tied Bouquets, Quick Easy Spring Arrangements; (Sunday morning) Easy Does It, Cake Decorating; (Sunday afternoon) Fresh Ideas with Fruits and Vegetables and Michele’s Flower Hour.

Children’s activities will be held all three days. Scheduled are: (Friday morning) Tin Punching; (Saturday afternoon) Face Painting, Waltz of the Flowers; (Sunday morning) Beading for Fun and Face Painting.

Table arrangements will be provided by Henry F. Clas Florist, Pearl Grant Richman’s Gifts, Mahalia Flowers, The Floral Garden, Dusk Antiques & Interior Decoration, Domaine of Distinction, Designs by Douglas and W&P Enterprises.

“New York in Bloom” is a primary funding source for the Museum Club, a nationally recognized, educational after-school program. The Club serves Albany youth aged 8-13, and also includes the Discovery Squad, for teens aged 13-18. Since 1987 the after-school program has provided tutoring and educational enrichment opportunities for youths from Albany’s underserved neighborhoods. Children receive homework help and reading support and participate in interactive projects involving Museum exhibits. In the Discovery Squad teens work with younger Museum Club children while developing professional skills with the assistance of adult mentors working in various fields at the Museum. Teens receive essential job training, academic and personal support, explore higher education opportunities and gain confidence as they serve the Museum in a variety of work-based capacities.

Volunteers are needed for “New York in Bloom.” Anyone interested may contact Brian Malloy at (518) 402-5869

Support for “New York in Bloom” was provided by the Times Union, IBM, KeyBank, SUNY Cobleskill, National Grid, Capital Bank, Time Warner Cable/Capital News 9, Quality Retail Systems, Ambiance Florals & Events, Dan Engwer Wholesale Florist, NYS Office of General Services, My Favorite Things Florist, Faddegon’s Nursery Inc., Seagroatt Floral Company and Seagroatt-Riccardi, Ltd.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. It is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. The museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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ALBANY – The Flushing Remonstrance, the earliest known document in America arguing for religious freedom, will be on exhibit at the New York State Museum on Sunday, December 27 to commemorate the anniversary of its signing more than 350 years ago.

Dated December 27, 1657, the Remonstrance is considered by historians to be the precursor of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing Americans religious freedom. Scorched by the New York State Capitol fire of 1911, the fragile document is part of the collection of the New York State Archives and has only been exhibited 13 times since 1945. It will be on display inside the Museum’s 1609 exhibition in the “Learning to Live Together” section.

The Remonstrance was written and signed by 30 English settlers in Flushing, Queens to protest a decree prohibiting Quakers from worshiping in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. The grievance was addressed to Peter Stuyvesant, director general of the colony, who had banned members of “that abominable sect” of Quakers from practicing their faith. The Remonstrance asserted that the order was contrary to the “liberty of conscience,” under the customs of Holland and the Dutch patent, or charter, to the town of Flushing (1645).

The historic record is a 1657 duplicate, copied by the provincial secretary into the minutes of the Dutch Colonial Council. It includes text and signatures that were on the original document. The whereabouts of the original petition is not known but it may have been returned to the individual who presented it to Stuyvesant. The Dutch Colonial Council minutes and other records of the New Netherland government were transferred to the new British government in 1664. The records were maintained by the secretary of the province of New York until 1783, when they became the custody of the secretary of state of New York, who transferred the Remonstrance and other Dutch records to the State Library in 1881. The Library was formerly housed at the State Capitol and the Remonstrance was seared when a devastating fire swept through the Capitol on March 29, 1911. The Remonstrance was transferred from the Library to the newly established New York State Archives in 1978.

An iconic record of early Dutch colonial government, the Remonstrance proclaimed the necessity of religious freedom of conscience and toleration. In Biblical language, it cited divine authority as superseding human authority. Although they were not Quakers themselves, the signers risked life, liberty and property to protest the harsh treatment of the newly-arrived Quakers. Some of the signatures were crossed out, perhaps because the signers got “cold feet.” Of those who did sign, some were arrested and imprisoned.

The Remonstrance was last exhibited in 2007 in Albany during its 350th anniversary year. That year it also attracted national media attention when it went on display at the Queens Public Library branch in Flushing. The Library also hosted a traveling exhibition in November featuring panel displays, written by a descendant of two of the original signers of the Remonstrance.

In 2006, the Remonstrance was one of several iconic artifacts from the collections of the State Archives, Museum and Library that were displayed in connection with a program featuring a lecture by nationally-known historian Kenneth Jackson. Jackson’s topic, “But It Was in New York: America Begins in the Empire State” addressed New York State’s powerful and unique, but largely unheralded role in American History. Additional information on the Flushing Remonstrance is available at

http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/documents/archivesmag_winter08_000.pdf.

The New York State Archives, Library and Museum are part of the Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY – The Flushing Remonstrance, the earliest known document in America arguing for religious freedom, will be on exhibit at the New York State Museum on Sunday, December 27 to commemorate the anniversary of its signing more than 350 years ago.

Dated December 27, 1657, the Remonstrance is considered by historians to be the precursor of the first amendment of the Bill of Rights, guaranteeing Americans religious freedom. Scorched by the New York State Capitol fire of 1911, the fragile document is part of the collection of the New York State Archives and has only been exhibited 13 times since 1945. It will be on display inside the Museum’s 1609 exhibition in the “Learning to Live Together” section.

The Remonstrance was written and signed by 30 English settlers in Flushing, Queens to protest a decree prohibiting Quakers from worshiping in the Dutch colony of New Amsterdam. The grievance was addressed to Peter Stuyvesant, director general of the colony, who had banned members of “that abominable sect” of Quakers from practicing their faith. The Remonstrance asserted that the order was contrary to the “liberty of conscience,” under the customs of Holland and the Dutch patent, or charter, to the town of Flushing (1645).

The historic record is a 1657 duplicate, copied by the provincial secretary into the minutes of the Dutch Colonial Council. It includes text and signatures that were on the original document. The whereabouts of the original petition is not known but it may have been returned to the individual who presented it to Stuyvesant. The Dutch Colonial Council minutes and other records of the New Netherland government were transferred to the new British government in 1664. The records were maintained by the secretary of the province of New York until 1783, when they became the custody of the secretary of state of New York, who transferred the Remonstrance and other Dutch records to the State Library in 1881. The Library was formerly housed at the State Capitol and the Remonstrance was seared when a devastating fire swept through the Capitol on March 29, 1911. The Remonstrance was transferred from the Library to the newly established New York State Archives in 1978.

An iconic record of early Dutch colonial government, the Remonstrance proclaimed the necessity of religious freedom of conscience and toleration. In Biblical language, it cited divine authority as superseding human authority. Although they were not Quakers themselves, the signers risked life, liberty and property to protest the harsh treatment of the newly-arrived Quakers. Some of the signatures were crossed out, perhaps because the signers got “cold feet.” Of those who did sign, some were arrested and imprisoned.

The Remonstrance was last exhibited in 2007 in Albany during its 350th anniversary year. That year it also attracted national media attention when it went on display at the Queens Public Library branch in Flushing. The Library also hosted a traveling exhibition in November featuring panel displays, written by a descendant of two of the original signers of the Remonstrance.

In 2006, the Remonstrance was one of several iconic artifacts from the collections of the State Archives, Museum and Library that were displayed in connection with a program featuring a lecture by nationally-known historian Kenneth Jackson. Jackson’s topic, “But It Was in New York: America Begins in the Empire State” addressed New York State’s powerful and unique, but largely unheralded role in American History. Additional information on the Flushing Remonstrance is available at

http://www.archives.nysed.gov/apt/magazine/documents/archivesmag_winter08_000.pdf.

The New York State Archives, Library and Museum are part of the Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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Focus on Nature VIII: Natural History Illustration opens April 24 at the New York State Museum, showcasing world-class, juried artwork by top illustrators from nine countries.

This exhibition, open through September 12 in Exhibition Hall, will feature 108 natural history illustrations, representing the work of 71 illustrators from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, France, Korea, Portugal and Spain. Subjects range from common garden plants, originally from South Africa, to an endangered bird in the Amazon, to the surreal illustration of a protein.

Many of the artists will be available to discuss their work at a reception, open to the public, on May 20 from 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. At that time, the winner(s) of the Purchase Award (s) will be announced. Awarded artwork is added to the Museum's collection of over 15,000 biological, geological and cultural illustrations.

A five-member jury of artists and scientists selected the pieces on exhibit, based on the illustration's educational value and artistic quality. The exhibition's goal is to demonstrate the important role illustration has in natural science research and education, to stimulate curiosity about the world, and bring clearly into focus images of nature that people might not otherwise be able to visualize.

"For many centuries, illustrators have kept pace with natural history science by communicating and recording the results of discoveries and research, as well as by expressing our relationship with the natural world," said Patricia Kernan, exhibition curator and scientific illustrator at the Museum. "The works in this exhibition are examples of how this tradition is being carried on to ever wider and deeper levels of understanding and sophistication. While illustrators continue using watercolor and other traditional materials, increasingly, they are using computers for the final production of their work."

Kernan said many of the illustrations are done for publications such as field guides, textbooks, science articles and presentations. Often, a publisher will require a digital submission, which means the computer is used at some point in the process. A catalog of illustrations in the exhibition will be available on May 20 at the reception or it can be ordered by contacting bseymour@mail.nysed.gov.

The Focus on Nature exhibition began in 1990 with 23 artists. It is held every two years and complements the biennial Northeast Natural History Conference on May 19-23, which is organized by the New York State Museum and the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute. The conference updates scientists, educators and students on research in the northeastern United States and Canada. More information on the conference can be found at www.nysm.nysed.gov/nhc.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

(ALBANY, NEW YORK) Focus on Nature XII: Natural History Illustration opens April 28 at the New York State Museum, showcasing juried artwork by top illustrators from 15 countries, including some from the Capital District and Hudson Valley.

The local artists include James Gurney of Rhinebeck, the author and illustrator of the book series “Dinotopia,” which has appeared in 18 languages in more than 30 countries and sold two million copies. There also are illustrations by Sue Adair of Schenectady, David Wheeler of Mechanicville and Carol Woodin of Accord.

Open through December 31, 2012 in the Photography Gallery, this biennial juried exhibition has continued to grow over the past 24 years, both in scope and reputation. This year’s exhibition features 93 natural history illustrations, representing the work of 72 illustrators. These were selected from 503 entries, submitted by 219 artists, up from the 450 submissions by 186 artists in 2010. Approximately one-third of the artists whose work was selected were new to the entry process. Countries represented for the first time are Thailand, Germany, and Switzerland. Other artists participating are from Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, England, Italy, Japan, The Netherlands, South Korea, Spain, Portugal, and the USA.

The exhibition’s goals are to demonstrate the important role illustration has in natural science research and education, to stimulate curiosity about the world, and to bring clearly into focus images of nature that people might not otherwise be able to visualize. Many of the illustrations are created for field guides, textbooks, science articles and presentations.

The subjects represented in the exhibition are diverse, ranging from those only found in the artists’ home country to those that have a worldwide distribution. These include many animals familiar in New York State and the northeastern U.S. such as the Great Horned Owl, Eastern Chipmunk, Woodchuck, and many that live underwater in the Long Island Sound. There are illustrations of seaslugs, a Common Raven, and common garden plants, such as garlic and chard. Also included are the Eastern Pygmy Possum, the Dusky Moorhen, and the Brush-tailed Rock-wallaby, all mammals found only in Australia, and the Papagaios, a parrot found in certain parts of Brazil. There also is an Illuminated Netdevil -- fierce looking, but only 3-inches-long.

“The Focus on Nature XII exhibition is like no other in the world,” said Mark Schaming, director of the State Museum. “It continues a long New York State tradition of presenting cutting-edge illustrations that reflect the latest knowledge of natural history.”

“Natural history illustration is a field that requires keeping pace with changing technology, and knowledge, and Focus on Nature has evolved to reflect these changes” said Patricia Kernan, scientific illustrator at the Museum and exhibition organizer. “This year’s exhibition includes both digital and traditional illustrations. Whatever technique is used, the aim is for accuracy and clarity to communicate the result of natural history investigations.”

A five-member jury of artists and scientists selected the pieces on display, based on each of the illustration’s educational value and artistic quality. Jury Awards will recognize the outstanding achievement of these artists.

More information about Focus on Nature can be found at: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/fon/ An online catalog with images and statements by the artists, as well as the names of Jury Award winners, will be available on this website after April 28. This information also will be in the exhibition gallery.

Established in 1836, the New York State Museum is a program of the State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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(ALBANY, NY) Focus on Nature X: Natural History Illustration opens April 17 at the New York State Museum, showcasing world-class, juried artwork by top illustrators from 13 countries.

This exhibition, open through September 7 in Photograph Gallery will feature 94 natural history illustrations, representing the work of 83 illustrators from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, England, Italy, South Korea, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa , and Spain. The organisms represented are diverse, ranging from mammals that are endemic to the artists’ home country -- numbats from Australia, and the crystal orchid from a single remote mountain in China -- to the ancient Roman lemons from Italy, rediscovered by the illustrator.

A five-member jury of artists and scientists selected the pieces on exhibit, based on the illustration’s educational value and artistic quality. The exhibition’s goal is to demonstrate the important role illustration has in natural science research and education, to stimulate curiosity about the world, and bring clearly into focus images of nature that people might not otherwise be able to visualize. Purchase Award(s) amounting to $20,000 will be presented by the Museum. The winning work(s) will be added to the museum's collections.

“Natural history illustration has a story that parallels that of science,” said Patricia Kernan, exhibition curator and scientific illustrator at the Museum. “From the beginning, it has been an integral part of the research process, and the most efficient and effective means by which investigators communicate their research results. Today, illustrators have available the tools of developing technology, as well as the traditional media. The works in this exhibition are examples of how artists use these tools with ever wider and deeper levels of understanding and sophistication.”

Kernan said many of the illustrations are created for field guides, textbooks, science articles and presentations. Some of these are included in the exhibition. A color catalog of illustrations in the exhibition will be available and can be ordered by visiting http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/publications/.

There are several Museum programs planned in conjunction with the exhibition. “Focus on Nature X: Drawing Workshop” will be held Saturday, May 10 from 1 to 4 p.m. There is a $20 fee for Museum members and $25 fee for non-members. Pre-registration is required by May 5. “Life Drawing for Adults” will be held April 16, 23 and May 7, 14, 21 and 28. The fee per session is $10 for Museum members and $12 for non-members. Registration for either program can be made by calling (518) 473-7154 or emailing psteinba@mail.nysed.gov.

The Focus on Nature exhibition began in 1990 with 23 artists. It is held every two years and complements the biennial Northeast Natural History Conference on April 17-18 at the Empire State Plaza Convention Center, organized by the New York State Museum and the New York State Biodiversity Research Institute. The conference updates scientists, educators and students on research in the northeastern United States and Canada. More information on the conference can be found at .

The State Museum, a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education, was founded on a tradition of scientific inquiry. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at .

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EDITORS NOTE: Attached is a list of New York State artists whose works are represented in the exhibition. To set up an interview with the illustrator or to obtain a photo of the illustrator’s work contact Joanne Guilmette at (518) 474-8730.

FON X Local Artist Contacts

New York

Sue deLearie Adair

107 Fox Run Drive

Schenectady, NY 12303 USA

Francesca Anderson

51 Cranberry Street

Brooklyn, NY 11201 USA

Judith Aronow

1 Persimmon Lane

White Plains, NY 10605 USA

James Coe

168 Alcove Road

Hannacroix, NY 12087 USA

Carol Coogan

553 Delaware Avenue

Albany, NY 12209-1414 USA

Camille Doucet

236 B Durfee Hill Road

Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

Frances L. Fawcett

1800 Ellis Hollow Road

Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

Ingrid Finnan

2727 Palisade Avenue, Apt. 5J

Bronx, NY 10463-1020 USA

James Gurney

P.O. Box 693

Rhinebeck, NY 12572 USA

Gretchen Kai Halpert

1179 Martin Hill Road

Corning, NY 14830 USA

Lauretta Jones

P.O. Box 241

Purdys, NY 10578 USA

Susan Kuo Ho

6 Iris Lane

Chappaqua, NY 10514 USA

Margaret C. Nelson

124 1/2 Judd Falls Road

Ithaca, NY 14850 USA

607-257-7144

Deborah Simon

1736 Fillmore Street

Bronx, NY 10460 USA

Terry A. Smith

132 First Avenue

Mechanicville, NY 12118 USA

Jeannette van Raalte

2609 Avenue "S"

Brooklyn, NY 11229-2538 USA

David Russell Wheeler

88 Brightman Road

Mechanicville, NY 12118 USA

(ALBANY, NY) Focus on Nature XI: Natural History Illustration opens April 12 at the New York State Museum, showcasing world-class, juried artwork by top illustrators from 13 countries.

This exhibition, open through October 31in the Photography Gallery, will feature 93 natural history illustrations, representing the work of 73 illustrators from the U.S., Australia, Brazil, Canada, England, Hungary, Italy, Mexico, The Netherlands, New Zealand, Portugal, South Africa and Spain. The subjects represented are diverse, ranging from those only found in the artists’ home country to those that have a worldwide distribution. They include the Short-beaked Echidna, the Platypus, and the Leadbeater’s Possum, all mammals found only in Australia, and the Red Andreaea, a plant endemic to the Agulhas Negras Mountains of Brazil. Also represented are many birds familiar in the northeastern U.S. such as the Peregrine Falcon, Barred Owl, Connecticut Warbler, House Sparrow, and one of the world’s most widespread -- the Barn Owl. There also are illustrations of an African Dung Beetle, along with the producer of its nourishment -- an African elephant. Also included are recreations of extinct organisms such as the Apatosaurus (a dinosaur), Deinosuchus (an ancient crocodile), and Odontochelys (the ancestor of turtles.)

A five-member jury of artists and scientists selected the pieces on display, based on the illustration’s educational value and artistic quality. The exhibition’s goal is to demonstrate the important role illustration has in natural science research and education, to stimulate curiosity about the world, and bring clearly into focus images of nature that people might not otherwise be able to visualize. Jury Awards will recognize the outstanding achievement of these artists.

“Natural history illustration is both useful to science and appealing to the general public and yet it is an art form that is not often exhibited.” said Patricia Kernan, exhibition curator and scientific illustrator at the Museum. “Most people do not realize that illustrations are still often the primary means used to record science and give explanations of the natural world. While very useful, photography cannot completely replace the accuracy, clarity, and flexibility of good illustrations. For instance, special diagnostic features can be highlighted, the juxtapositioning of important information can be accomplished, abstract concepts can be diagramed, and extinct organisms can be brought to life. There are examples of all of these in this exhibition.”

Many of the illustrations are created for field guides, textbooks, science articles and presentations. Some of these publications are included in exhibition cases. More information about Focus on Nature can be found at: http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/fon/ An online catalog with images and statements by the artists, as well as the names of Jury Award winners, will be available on this website after April 13. An interactive with this information also will be in the exhibition gallery.

The State Museum, a cultural program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education, was founded on a tradition of scientific inquiry. Started in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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EDITORS NOTE: Attached is a list of artists from the Northeast whose works are represented in the exhibition. To set up an interview with the illustrator or to obtain a digital photo of the illustrator’s work contact Joanne Guilmette at (518) 474-8730 or Albert Gnidica at (518) 474-0068.

(ALBANY, NY, USA) – The New York State Museum and Le Caen Memorial in Caen, France have organized a major exhibition exploring the personal and historical significance of September 11, 2001, which will open at Le Caen Memorial June 6.

The exhibition, “A Global Moment,” open through November 11, features rare artifacts from the World Trade Center (WTC) recovered after the collapse, and a timeline that traces events of the day. It also will include personal stories and objects, images, interactive programs and films about everyday life at the World Trade Center, and the aftermath of the attack. The exhibition’s goal is to help visitors gain a clearer understanding of the events of September 11, learn more about the people whose lives were lost, and provide visitors with a platform to share their experiences relating to the tragedy. There also will be a section to inform visitors about the rebuilding and memorial at the WTC site.

About 8,000 square feet in size, the exhibition will include hundreds of photographs, and more than 100 artifacts from the WTC towers, culled from the State Museum’s collections. The exhibition will include a rescue vehicle destroyed on 9/11, personal objects linked to several individuals who perished or survived, and expressions of sympathy from New York, such as the Times Square scrolls, memorial fences and posters of missing persons.

The exhibition is divided into themed sections. The introduction focuses on the World Trade Center before September 11. Visitors will see WTC artifacts, photographs of the WTC, and video/ films from the Power Authority of New York and New Jersey showing everyday life at the WTC. Facts about the site, and WTC construction will also be included.

In another section of the exhibition, visitors will experience a large walk-through timeline, with images, text, artifacts and sound, designed to help visitors understand how the day unfolded, the sequence

of the attacks, evacuations and collapse of the towers. Objects will include a WTC sign, steel and

aluminum facade of the tower, airplane pieces, a seatbelt from one of the airliners, and rescue objects from the New York City fire and police departments. Also included are objects recovered from the WTC site, including the remains of an Alexander Calder sculpture, a destroyed fire department vehicle, elevator signs, keys and evacuation signs. This area will also feature “The First 24 Hours,” a film by French filmmaker Etienne Sauret.

Another section will feature images and artifacts of Ground Zero and the recovery operation at Fresh Kills, a former landfill on Staten Island whose name, “fresh stream,” came from early Dutch settlers. This area will show the extent of this historic and humanitarian operation that was designed to find remains of every person lost, and their personal possessions. Objects on display will include a Rodin sculpture fragment, WTC souvenirs, signs, rescue artifacts and destroyed lamppost fragments. A computer kiosk will allow visitors to access interviews with the recovery teams, FBI, New York City police and others. “Collateral Damages,” another film by Sauret, will also be shown.

The international response to the tragedy will be the focus of another area of the exhibition. Many people recall exactly where they were and how they learned of the attacks on September 11. A customized interactive unit will record visitors’ comments. After the exhibition tour, the recorded responses will be archived at the New York State Museum and at the Caen Memorial Museum.

Biographies of several 9/11 victims and survivors will help to put a human face on the tragedy. “Portraits of Grief,” from the New York Times, will be available in this area.

Formed in 1836, the New York State Museum is the largest and oldest state museum in the United States. A research museum with more than 10 million objects in its collections, the Museum is dedicated to promoting inquiry and advancing knowledge about the human and natural history of New York State. The Museum is the country’s largest repository of material from the World Trade Center and the response to September 11, 2001. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, N.Y., the Museum is a program of the University of the State of New York, State Education Department. Further information is available by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

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(ALBANY, NY) – The New York State Museum has announced the June 26 opening of its second exhibition in France exploring the personal and historical significance of September 11, 2001.

The exhibition, which first opened at Le Caen Memorial in Caen, France on June 6, 2008, is traveling to the Oradour Memorial Museum in Oradour-sur-Glane France, where it will be on view in the Centre de la Memoire at Oradour through April 2010.

A major historical site in France, the Memorial at Oradour-sur-Glane commemorates the site of the June 10, 1944 murder of 642 civilians by a Waffen SS Division, which also destroyed the village. The remains of the city, now known as the Martyrs’ Village, have been preserved and are accessible through the Oradour Memorial Museum.

The Museum decided to host the exhibition on the World Trade Center (WTC) attack because it also commemorates a tragedy where innocent civilians were murdered. The exhibition’s goal is to help visitors gain a clearer understanding of the events of September 11, learn more about the people whose lives were lost, and provide visitors with a platform to share their experiences relating to the tragedy.

Organized by the State Museum, the exhibition – “September 11, 2001” -- features rare artifacts from the World Trade Center recovered after the collapse, and a timeline that traces events of the day. It includes personal stories and objects, images, interactive programs and films about everyday life at the World Trade Center, and the aftermath of the attack.

About 4,000 square feet in size, the exhibition includes hundreds of photographs, and more than 100 artifacts from the WTC towers, (many never before seen by the public), from the State Museum’s collections, Port Authority of New York and New Jersey (PANYNJ), and objects loaned by families and survivors of the attacks. The exhibition includes a PANYNJ rescue vehicle destroyed on 9/11, personal objects linked to several individuals who perished or survived, and expressions of sympathy from New York, such as the Times Square scrolls, memorial fences and posters of missing persons.

The exhibition is divided into themed sections. The introduction focuses on the World Trade Center before September 11. A film of the ABC News John Miller 1998 interview with Bin Laden is included. Visitors will also see WTC artifacts, photographs of the WTC, and video/ films from the Power Authority of New York and New Jersey, showing everyday life at the WTC. Facts about the site and WTC construction are also included.

In another section of the exhibition, visitors experience a large walk-through timeline, with images, text, artifacts and sound, designed to help visitors understand how the day unfolded, the sequence of the attacks, evacuations and collapse of the towers. Objects include a WTC sign, steel and aluminum facade of the tower, airplane pieces, a seatbelt from one of the airliners, and rescue objects from the Fire Department of New York, New York Police Department and FBI. Also included are objects recovered from the WTC site, including the remains of an Alexander Calder sculpture, a destroyed fire department vehicle, elevator signs, keys and evacuation signs. This area also features “The First 24 Hours,” a film by French filmmaker Etienne Sauret.

Another section will feature images of and artifacts from Ground Zero and the recovery operation at Fresh Kills, a former landfill on Staten Island whose name, “fresh stream,” came from early Dutch settlers. This area will show the extent of this historic and humanitarian operation that was designed to find remains of every person lost, and their personal possessions Objects on display will include WTC souvenirs, signs, rescue artifacts, destroyed lamppost fragments and a recovered fragment of Auguste Rodin’s bronze “The Three Shades,” from the collection of Cantor Fitzgerald.

Biographies of nine 9/11 victims and survivors, along with artifacts, are also included in the exhibition to help to put a human face on the tragedy.

The New York State Museum has the largest collection of artifacts from the World Trade Center and many of these have been used in the Museum’s permanent exhibition in Albany, N.Y., the nation’s most comprehensive permanent exhibition about the World Trade Center history and September 11th attacks. An online version of the permanent exhibition is available at http://www.nysm.nysed.gov/exhibits/longterm/wtc/

Formed in 1836, the New York State Museum is the largest and oldest state museum in the United States. The Museum is dedicated to promoting inquiry and advancing knowledge about the human and natural history of New York State. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, N.Y., the Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department, the University of the State of New York and the Office of Cultural Education. Further information is available by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

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ALBANY, NY – Dr. Frankie Bailey will speak about “Crime in the Big Apple: The Social History of Crime in New York City” on Saturday, June 3 at 2 p.m. in the State Museum Theater.

Dr. Bailey will examine how social changes have shaped New York City and how this social history is reflected in the crimes that have occurred there in the past 300 years. A professor of criminal justice at the University at Albany, Dr. Bailey is the co-author of several academic books including “Law Never Here”: A Social History of African American Responses to Issues of Crime and Justice with Alice Green, and Blood on Her Hands: The Social Construction of Women, Sexuality, and Murder with Donna Hale. She and Steven Chermak are the co-editors of a five volume set, Famous American Crimes and Trials (2004), which was nominated for the Anthony and Macavity awards.

A native of Virginia, Dr. Bailey graduated from Virginia Tech, majoring in psychology and English, and obtained her doctorate in criminal justice from the University at Albany. The research for one of her early books -- Out of the Woodpile: Black Characters in Crime and Detective Fiction – led her to mystery workshops, conferences and a writing group. She is the author of a mystery series featuring crime historian Lizzie Stuart. The fourth book in the series, You Should Have Died on Monday, will be published in April 2007. Copies of her mysteries will be available for purchase at the free program.

The New York State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Education Department. Started in 1836, the museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the United States. The state museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

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ALBANY, NY – The New York State Museum celebrates 175 years of adding to the scientific and historical knowledge of New York State with a new exhibition which showcases the Museum’s invaluable collections, highlights the people who built them and the research that has resulted.

On display in Exhibition Hall until April 30, 2012, “From the Collections” features many of the Museum’s important collections in anthropology, history and natural science. It illuminates the history of the oldest and largest state museum in the nation. Included are highlights of the more than 15 million scientific and historic artifacts and specimens that make up the Museum’s collections, including perennial favorites, priceless treasures and new acquisitions.

The Museum and its collections officially began on April 15, 1836 when Governor William Marcy appointed the staff of the state’s first official Geological and Natural History Survey to conduct “a grand and comprehensive collection of the natural productions of the State of New York to exhibit under one roof its animal, mineral and vegetable wealth.”

The mineral collection – one of the Museum’s earliest – contain 35,000 specimens and date back to 1837 when Governor Marcy appointed Lewis Beck as mineralogist of the Geological Survey. Many of the minerals he collected during his trips across New York were incorporated into the State Cabinet of Natural History, the precursor of the State Museum. There are 30 minerals on display, some which have never been exhibited before. Some come from Beck’s collection and others were added this past year.

Specimens also are on display from the Herbarium collection, which documents the flora of the state. In 1836 John Torrey was employed to carry out botanical studies with the objective of acquiring every plant species known to occur in the state. The collection now consists of 200,000 vascular plant specimens, 50,000 bryophytes, 90,000 fungi, 12,000 lichens and countless others.

Also in the natural science section are colorful, very detailed scientific illustrations and paintings, as well as the skulls of a mastodon, whale and coyotes, as well as images of the collection and preservation process. Also on display is the baleen of a whale, which is the filter-feed system inside mouths of baleen whales. The exhibition also provides information on current research based on these collections.

The Museum’s history collection, with five million artifacts, dates back to 1901 when the New York State Agricultural Society donated a collection it had amassed to advance the field of agriculture. Large equipment, circa 1845-1865, are on display.

The State Museum has one of the most comprehensive collections of Shaker materials. The exhibition includes photos of the community and many examples of Shaker-made items including furniture, clothing, boxes, and molds and forms for their commercially sold products.

As visitors enter the exhibition they will see the Weebermobile, a car invented and built around 1903 by Christian F. Weeber Jr., an Albany native who began building experimental automobiles in the 1890s, just a few years after the automobile was invented.

Representing 200 years of decorative arts is the E. Eric Martin Wunsch collection, dating from 1700 to 1900. Furniture, jewelry and other items are on display. Visitors will also see stoneware from the Adam Weitsman collection and furniture, jewelry and other objects from the J. Tompkins Family collection. From the vaudeville collection are photos, drums and other items once used by vaudeville performer Iva Erway Garcinetti, (stage name Marjorie Miller).

The exhibition’s anthropology section includes historic Native American artifacts and images from the Museum’s extensive ethnology collections, including one amassed between 1849-1850 by Lewis Henry Morgan, world renowned as “the father of American ethnology.”

Other objects are from the collection of Arthur C. Parker, the first American Indian Museum professional and New York State’s first state archaeologist. He pioneered the use of exhibits for cultural education. His Iroquois Village Life dioramas, on display from 1918 to 1976 in the old Museum location in the State Education Building, set a new professional standard.

Archaeology collections acquired more recently by the State Museum include the Mohawk Valley collection and the South Street Seaport Museum collection, transferred from the South Street Seaport Museum in lower Manhattan.

Also on display are many artifacts, including some that are prehistoric, collected through the Cultural Resource Survey Program, which completes legally required archaeological and architectural assessments for state and federal agencies. Collections are used in public outreach and educational programming at the Museum, in schools and in local communities.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open Monday through Saturday from 9:30 p.m. to 5 p. m. It is closed on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s Day. Further information is available by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

ALBANY, NY – “Spring has Sprung ’’ will be the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, April 7 and 8. 
The “Family Fun Weekend, Presented by Fidelis Care” takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in Bird Hall, on the Museum’s first floor. 
Throughout the afternoon visitors can make a ceramic flower magnet to paint and hang on the refrigerator or a spring-themed stained glass panel to hang in a window.Children can also choose a spring design to have painted on their faces. Museum staff will also give out planting packets filled with tips on planting flowers and seeds in the ground. Also scheduled is a scavenger hunt with prizes. 
On Saturday, Museum visitors will also have an opportunity to see an original play free of charge that is based on the legends and culture of the Iroquois people. “A Song, A Dance, A Story: Legends of the Iroquois Longhouse’’ will be performed at 2 p.m. in South Hall. Capital Repertory Theatre commissioned playwright Ed. Lange to write a work about the Iroquois appropriate for grades 3 and up. “A Song’’ is part of Capital Repertory’s spring school performance series. It was inspired by the work of Albany painter Thomas Dorsey, Jr., who is also known by his Indian name, “Tom Two Arrows.’’ The play is also based on interviews with Michael Tarbell of the Iroquois Indian Museum. The 
contemporary story follows what happens when a young lacrosse player, frustrated that he has not made a team, encounters people of the Longhouse. 
Playgoers will also be able to visit “Ska-Ni-Kwat: (The Power of the Good Mind), Iroquois Beadwork,” exhibition in an adjacent gallery, as well as the Museum’s longhouse, also nearby. 
“Family Fun Weekends, Presented by Fidelis Care” offer theme-based family activities, on the first weekend of the month. 
The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. 
Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum Web site at www.nysm.nysed.gov.
 

ALBANY, NY – Vacationing in New York will be the theme of the New York State

Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, July 7 and 8.

The Family Fun Weekend, presented by Fidelis Care, takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both

days. Activities, which are free of charge, are designed to help families prepare for and

enjoy summer travel in the state. 

On Saturday, Abbe Hahn-Hook, an educator with AnimaLovers, will discuss what pet

owners should do with their dogs and cats when they go on vacation. The organization,

which is based in Albany, helps homeless animals in upstate New York and encourages

proper care of pets. Hahn-Hook, who will be in Adirondack Hall, will answer questions

and bring an activity for children.

Both afternoons, the New York State Tourism Bureau will have a table in the main

lobby to provide information and distribute items from the “I Love New York” campaign.

At 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, participants will get a chance to imagine

what the sky would look like if they were camping when the “The Sky Tonight” is

presented in the Museum’s inflatable Star Lab Planetarium. The display will show the position of the

stars for Saturday and Sunday nights. The show, in the Carole F. Huxley Theater

(former Museum Theater), is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket

at the information desk in the lobby. In addition, tents from the Museum’s teaching

collection will be set up in Adirondack Hall.

Children may make a visor in their choice of color, decorated with their name or

favorite sports team, which they can wear on vacation. They can also color a summer

picture and glue it onto a background. Throughout the afternoon, they may participate in

a scavenger hunt with prizes. There will also be an activity packet to take home filled

with coloring sheets, word searches, puzzles and a “boredom busters” booklet.

Family Fun Weekends, presented by Fidelis Care, offer theme-based family activities,

on the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York

State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in

Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and

Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum Web site.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – “Life in the Adirondacks” will be the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, October 18 and 19.

The Family Fun Weekend takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in and around Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s first floor.

Young people will learn about plant and animal life from the items displayed on an Adirondack activity cart. They can make and take home a leaf sun catcher and work at a coloring table. There will also be a scavenger hunt, with prizes, and an activity packet.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities on the third weekend of the month. The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum Web site at www.nysm.nysed.gov/calendar.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – Harvest time will be the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, September 20 and 21.

The Family Fun Weekend takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in and around Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s first floor.

On Saturday only, at 1 p.m. and 3 p.m. in the Huxley Theater, licensed raptor rehabilitators Jim Parks and Julie Anne Collier will present live eagles, hawks, owls and falcons as they discuss the migration patterns of North American birds of prey. Parks andCollier are founders of Wingmasters, an organization based in western Massachusetts that uses educational programs to raise awareness of raptors or birds of prey and theuncertain future some face as endangered species.

“It gives people a chance to see up close what is virtually impossible to see in the wild,’’ said Parks. “These aren’t exotic birds, these are birds that are native to New York, or used to be and no longer are.”

Goolds Orchards in Schodack will be in the lobby on Saturday from 1 to 4 p.m. and will present a video showing the cider-making process. Both days, children will receive an activity packet and can make and take home a fall-themed craft.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities on the third weekend of themonth. The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York StateEducation Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling(518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum Web site at http://www/nysm.gov/calendar.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – Bicycle safety is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next

Family Fun Weekend, June 2-3. 

Family Fun Weekend, presented by Fidelis Care, takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both

days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held mostly in Bird Hall, on the

Museum’s first floor.

On Saturday afternoon Michelle Stefanik, a Museum employee who is an experienced

cyclist, will use a course set up like streets to teach basic cycling practices. Her

demonstration will cover which way to face, how to signal and which lane to ride in.

Stefanik will also explain how to prepare a bicycle for riding by checking seat height, tire

pressure and brake pads. (Participants are asked not to bring a bicycle; this is only a

demonstration)

At 2:30 p.m. Saturday the Brain Injury Association of New York State will present a

“Kids on the Block®” puppet show. The troupe’s program on brain injuries uses puppets

wearing helmets to talk about bicycle safety. “Kids’’ is an internationally-acclaimed

troupe that helps children understand their peers with disabilities.

On Sunday afternoon, a New York State trooper will be on hand to discuss

family bicycle safety and answer questions.

Young people will be given a special “five-step tune-up” packet of information on

how to tune up their bicycles, and a packet of puzzles, word searches and other activities.

They can also color bicycle safety sheets and make a stained glass bird, butterfly

or flower to take home and hang in a window. A scavenger hunt, with prizes, will be held

throughout the weekend.

Family Fun Weekends, presented by Fidelis Care, offer theme-based family activities,

on the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York

State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in

Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and

Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling

(518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum Web site at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – “Life in the Adirondacks” is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, August 4 and 5.

The Family Fun Weekend, presented by Fidelis Care, takes place from 1 – 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in and around Adirondack Hall on the Museum’s first floor.

On Saturday, Adirondacks-inspired singer, songwriter and storyteller Christopher Shaw will visit. Shaw is a regular presence in schools throughout the state. Most recently, he produced “Adirondack Serenade,’’ a collection of ballads that reflect his devotion to the people of the mountains.

Also planned for Saturday is a presentation on “Leave No Trace,” a national education program that teaches the public how to enjoy recreational lands responsibly. Thaddeus Beblowski, a member of the Museum staff who has been trained by the organization, will lead the program, which emphasizes disposing of waste, hiking, building a campfire and pitching a tent in ways that minimize the impact on the land.

Aubrey Fleszar, a personal trainer at the Fitness Coach in West Sand Lake and a USA Triathlon certified coach, will also be on hand Saturday from 2:30 to 4 p.m. She will be available to talk to visitors about the Ironman Triathlon in Lake Placid that she competed in during 2004 and 2005. The event included a 2.4 mile swim, 112-mile bike route and a 26.2 mile run. 

Throughout the weekend there will be Museum Exploration Stations in Adirondack Hall. Included will be carts featuring touchable objects that highlight New York’s gem and mineral resources, the natural history of the Adirondacks and adaptations of bear and moose to life in the Northeast. Also, tents from the Museum’s teaching collection will add to the rustic ambiance.

At 2 and 3 p.m. Saturday and Sunday, participants will get a chance to imagine what the sky would look like if they were camping when “The Sky Tonight” is presented in the Museum’s inflatable Star Lab Planetarium. The display will show the position of the constellations for Saturday and Sunday nights. The show, in the Carole F. Huxley Theater, is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket at the information desk in the lobby.

Throughout the afternoon both days, children may make a stained-glass woodland animal to hang from a window at home. There also will be a scavenger hunt with prizes and an activity packet to take home filled with coloring sheets, word searches and other activities.

Family Fun Weekends, presented by Fidelis Care, offer theme-based family activities and are held the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible.

Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – “Dutch Albany” is the theme of the next Family Fun Weekend, January 17 and 18.

The Family Fun Weekend takes place from 1- 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in an around Adirondack Hall, on the Museum’s first floor.

Young people will learn about the city’s Dutch origins through art, music and other activities. There will be a coloring table and a craft activity allowing participants to make and take home a miniature Dutch house. Participants will also take home a Dutch history activity packet.

On Sunday only, from 1 – 4 p.m., there will be a performance by “Peter, Paul & George," an Albany-based musical group that leads traditional dances throughout the Northeast. The audience will also have the opportunity to participate in Dutch folk dancing.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities on the third weekend of the month. The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

ALBANY, NY – “Spring has Sprung” is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend on April 19 and 20.

The Family Fun Weekend takes place from 1 – 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which arefree of charge, are held on the Museum’s first floor.

On Sunday only Carol Morley, an outdoors educator, will present a program about worms, which is intended to help young gardeners as they prepare for the season. Both days, a spring constellations show will be presented in the Museum’s inflatable Star Lab, which is located in the Huxley Auditorium. Seating is limited and tickets, which are free of charge, must be obtained at the information desk.

Both afternoons, Family Fun participants can also make and decorate a craft and workat the coloring table and take home a gardening packet.

Family Fun Weekends offer theme-based family activities on the third weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving and Christmas. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

# # #

ALBANY, NY – “Harvest Time in New York” is the theme of the New York State Museum’s next Family Fun Weekend, September 1 and 2.

The Family Fun Weekend, presented by Fidelis Care, takes place from 1 – 4 p.m. both days. Activities, which are free of charge, are held in and around the Museum’s main lobby.

Families will have an opportunity to experience the state’s rich agricultural heritage. Throughout the weekend, Altamont-based Indian Ladder Farms will invite visitors to participate a taste-test of their apples. The farm will have a display showing where such products as honey and maple syrup come from. A baby Pygmy goat will also be on hand.

On Saturday, Adirondacks-inspired singer-songwriter Dan Berggren will perform country harvest time songs. Also Saturday, a video will be shown featuring Alice Waters, an American chef and advocate of buying fresh, locally-produced food. The video was provided by Sandra Varno, a registered dietitian and nutrition educator with Cornell University Cooperative Extension of Albany County. A spinner will demonstrate wool preparation from fleece to yarn.

At 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday in the Museum’s inflatable Star Lab, visitors can learn how Native People used the sky to determine when to harvest crops and when to hunt. The show will also cover mythology associated with the sky. The Star Lab will be set up in the Carole F. Huxley Theater. Attendance is limited to 30 people, who must obtain a free ticket at the lobby information desk.

Throughout the afternoon both days, children may make Plaster of Paris harvest leaves that can be painted and used as refrigerator magnets. There will be a scavenger hunt with prizes and an activity packet to take home filled with coloring sheets, word searches and other activities.

Family Fun Weekends, presented by Fidelis Care, offer theme-based family activities and are held the first weekend of the month.

The New York State Museum, established in 1836, is a program of the New York State Education Department. Located at the Empire State Plaza on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free and the Museum is fully accessible. Further information about Museum programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

# # #
 

ALBANY, NY – During the week of June 28, New York State Museum geologists will collect sediment cores in the Esopus Valley and its tributary valleys to conduct research relating to climate change, as well as to assist in improving the quality of New York City’s water supply.

The research project, funded by the National Cooperative Geologic Mapping Program, will involve mapping the location and thickness of clay deposits in the Esopus Creek watershed. The clay was deposited in large lakes dammed by glacial ice during the most recent retreat of the continental ice sheet from New York State between 20,000 and 12,000 years ago. During their existence, the glacial lake basins accumulated thick deposits of layered silt and clay that record information about climate change. Geologists hope to extract paleo-climate data from the recovered sediments to help determine the timing of the lakes' existence and the ice retreat.

The second, and more pragmatic, reason for locating the clay deposits in Esopus Creek watershed is because Esopus Creek water flows into the Ashokan Reservoir, one of the Catskill water supply reservoirs for New York City’s drinking water. Floods in the Esopus watershed have caused stream bank erosion and landslides that expose these lake clay sources and increase the amount of clay suspended in the water (turbidity).

Because of the importance of identifying the distribution of these potential turbidity sources in the Ashokan watershed, the New York State Museum has coordinated this effort with the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program, a partnership of Cornell Cooperative Extension in Ulster County, the Ulster County Soil and Water Conservation District, and the New York City Department of Environmental Protection. Knowing the location and extent of clay deposits will aid the Ashokan Watershed Stream Management Program’s proposed management strategies for improving the quality of New York City's drinking water.

The New York State Museum is a program of the New York State Department of Education’s Office of Cultural Education. Founded in 1836, the Museum has the longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey in the U.S. Located on Madison Avenue in Albany, the Museum is open daily from 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Admission is free. Further information can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the Museum website.

A gavel used by Vice President Richard Cheney to convene the 2002 joint session of Congress, held in New York City to honor the World Trade Center (WTC) victims, has been installed in the New York State Museum's World Trade Center gallery.

Governor George Pataki, who also participated in the historic meeting, donated the gavel to the Museum after receiving it from Rep. Dennis Hastert, speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives, who presided at the session with Cheney. The joint session was held September 6, 2002 in Federal Hall in remembrance of the victims and heroes of September 11th, 2001.

"The gavel is an important artifact of a truly historic occasion - marking the first time Congress met in New York City since 1790 and only the second time it has met outside of Washington since 1800," Governor Pataki wrote to Speaker Hastert, thanking him for the gavel. Letters from Governor Pataki and Speaker Hastert are on display, along with the gavel, in a newly installed case of the Response section of the gallery.

Other new additions to the Response section include a mixed media collage titled Hindsight, which was created by Kelly Ryan, a high school student from Stillwater, New York and a painting, titled Liberty's Children, by Ron Olden a Reno, Nevada based artist .

The collage was created as part of a class project designed to investigate the nature of hindsight - the comprehension of the meaning of an event that was lacking when it happened. The creative process helped Ms. Ryan to realize that the events of September 11, 2001 are "now a big part of our nation's history, never to be forgotten."

Nevada Artist Ron Olden first presented the painting to the governor of Nevada, who then presented it to Governor Pataki. It was chosen for the Museum's WTC gallery because it represents the far-reaching response to the World Trade Center tragedy.

The collage and painting are among thousands of items in the Museum's World Trade Center Response collection. Items are rotated in and out of the Response section of the museum's permanent exhibition - The World Trade Center Rescue Recovery Response that opened in September 2002.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

A lecture on the hidden world in the tunnels under New York City will be among the activities at the "11th Annual James Campbell Memorial Gem, Mineral and Fossil Show and Sale," to be held Saturday, February 21 and Sunday, February 22 at the New York State Museum.

Open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the museum's concourse level, the show will help to fund new acquisitions for the museum's gem and mineral collections. Among new acquisitions from last year is a case of fluorescent minerals that glow under fluorescent light. The show will feature vendors, who will display and sell gems, jewelry, minerals, fossils, books, videos, lapidary equipment and supplies, stone carvings, bookends and silver and goldsmithing tools. There also will be lectures, children's activities and guided exhibition tours.

Available for sale at the Museum's publications booth will be publications produced by the New York State Museum's Research and Collections Division documenting research in natural and human history in New York. Materials on display will include data in geology, archaeology, paleontology, anthropology, biology, and history.

Dr. Charles Merguerian of Hofstra University will lecture Saturday at 1 p.m. in the Clark Auditorium on "The Mineralogy and Geology of the Queens Water Tunnel." Dr. Merguerian was the consulting geologist on this recent project, deep under New York City, and presents an eyewitness view of this unseen world.

On Sunday at 1 p.m. in the Clark Auditorium, Dr. Ed Landing, the state paleontologist at the State Museum, will deliver the keynote lecture, "Adirondack rocks and Saharan fossils in southern Mexico." He will summarize his current research showing that southern Mexico originated as a fragment of eastern North America that broke away to become part of the African margin of the ancient Gondwana continent.

Other activities over the weekend will include:

A mineral dig for children, hosted by the Capital District Mineral Club, throughout the weekend.

A continuous presentation by John Skiba, the museum's senior cartographer, about map-making processes and methods for producing the State Museum's new geologic quadrangle map.

Guided tours of the Minerals of New York gallery, highlighting recent acquisitions, by Michael Hawkins, the State Museum's mineralogy collections manager, on Saturday at 2 p.m. and Sunday at noon. Meet in Museum lobby.

Guided fossil tour of the expanded Ancient Life of New York exhibition by Dr. Landing on Sunday at 2 p.m. Meet in Museum lobby.

Identification by Museum scientists of fossils and minerals brought in by the public, throughout the weekend.

The gem and mineral show was initiated by the late James Campbell, a member of the Museum's geological staff, and has become one of the Museum's most popular and well-attended annual events. There will be an admission fee of $3 per person and no charge for children 12 and under if accompanied by an adult. There also will be a $5 combination ticket available that will include admission to "New York in Bloom," which will be held at the Museum the same weekend. Tickets may be purchased at the door.

The State Museum is a cultural program of the New York State Department of Education. Started in 1836, the museum has the nation's longest continuously operating state natural history research and collection survey. The museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. Further information is available by calling 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.

The New York State Museum is located on Madison Avenue in Albany. It is open 9:30 a.m. to 5 p.m. seven days a week throughout the year except on Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's Day. Further information about programs and events can be obtained by calling (518) 474-5877 or visiting the museum website at www.nysm.nysed.gov.