Exhibits
The areas of the museum include the Spirit of the Cowgirl Theater, the Lifetiles murals, the children's Discovery Corral, the retail Cowgirl Shop and a large Rotating Exhibit Gallery. Permanent galleries include:
- The Hall of Fame Honoree Gallery features one honoree from each of the Hall of Fame categories: Champions and Competitive Performers, Ranchers (Stewards of Land and Livestock), Entertainers, Artists and Writers, and Trailblazers and Pioneers
- "Into the Arena," which covers women in the fields of rodeo and trick riding, as well as modern horsemen of note such as Belmont Stakes winning jockey Julie Krone. It has interactive computer displays, rodeo memorabilia, clothing, and other rodeo artifacts. The area also displays saddles such as Sheila Welch’s cutting horse saddle, and Julie Krone's racing saddle. Rodeo fashions are displayed in “Arena Style,” where a rotating rack moves in direct response to a flat-panel, touch-screen display placed in front of the case featuring details and additional information about various outfits, threading together a rodeo star’s story with her corresponding clothing. Also in this gallery is an interactive bronc riding experience, where visitors can ride a fake horse that has been modified from training bulls used by rodeo riders. Visitor’s "rides" can be videoed, and then sped up, and transformed into footage from an old-style rodeo for purchase.
- "Kinship with the Land," which includes exhibits related to ranching, including historic gear including saddles, women's clothing such as split skirts, pistols, a Victorian riding habit and a sidesaddle. It has both graphic panels and plasma screen displays. An interactive exhibit allows children to saddle a model Shetland pony, and other displays for children, show childrens' chaps, 4-H ribbons and a selection of toys.
- "Claiming the Spotlight" shows the cowgirl as represented in media, and the varying roles the archtypical cowgirl has played in film, television, advertising and music. The gallery includes a collection of dime novels, displays on entertainers who have portrayed cowgirls such as Barbara Stanwyck, Dale Evans, and Patsy Montana. The gallery includes an old-time theater with a looping film narrated by Katharine Ross about portrayals of cowgirls in mass media, a television area featuring clips from 1950s era series, and jukeboxes playing music by country and western women performers. Interactive exhibits allow Visitors to pose for a movie poster and purchase the ensuing image at the gift shop.
The Rotating Exhibit Gallery has hosted past exhibits including: Donna Howell-Sickles: The Timeless Image of the Cowgirl; Georgia O'Keeffe and the Faraway: Nature and Image; Going to Texas: Five Centuries of Texas Maps; Paniolo: Cowboys and Cowgirls of the Hawaiian Frontier; Photographing Montana 1894-1928: The World of Evelyn Cameron; Ride: A Global Adventure; Texas Flags; The Cowgirl Who Became A Justice: Sandra Day O'Connor, Hard Twist: Western Ranch Women - Photographs by Barbara Van Cleve and No Glitz, No Glory.
Read more about this topic: National Cowgirl Museum And Hall Of Fame
Famous quotes containing the word exhibits:
“Uncritical semantics is the myth of a museum in which the exhibits are meanings and the words are labels. To switch languages is to change the labels.”
—Willard Van Orman Quine (b. 1908)
“It exhibits the effort of an essentially prosaic mind to lift itself, by a prolonged muscular strain, into poetry.”
—Henry James (1843–1916)
“After all the field of battle possesses many advantages over the drawing-room. There at least is no room for pretension or excessive ceremony, no shaking of hands or rubbing of noses, which make one doubt your sincerity, but hearty as well as hard hand-play. It at least exhibits one of the faces of humanity, the former only a mask.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)