Museum of Art exhibits to close Friday for summer renovations

Published 4:05 pm Monday, June 11, 2018

To keep up with downtown changes, the Meridian Museum of Art will be closed Friday and throughout the summer for renovation, temporarily closing exhibitions but not affecting summer classes.

The renovations, previously announced in March, will start on the interior thanks to funding from the Riley Foundation in a matching grant. 

“We’re going with a warm gray inside,” Kate Cherry, the director of the museum, said. “It goes with the artwork very well because it’s neutral.”

Cherry said other updates included new flooring, changing the carpeting to a hard floor more suitable for the children’s art classes and weddings that use the venue space. 

She estimated that the facility hadn’t undergone a renovation since the 1980s, certainly not since she’d been with the museum.

“It’s exciting for me because I have been around for at least two decades,” Cherry said. “And it’s good to get a new look.”

Upgrades will also includes changes to the galleries themselves, with a permanent gallery on the first floor and rotating collections on the second floor. These collections will primarily focus on Mississippi and Alabama artists, Cherry said. 

The other anticipated upgrades, the exterior ramp and brick gardens, will be upgraded by the City of Meridian, which also plans to install a park across the street from the museum. Cherry hadn’t received an estimate from the city about those changes yet. 

With the Riley Foundation contributing $42,154 and the museum adding $50,000, Thursday’s fundraiser will be one of many opportunities to contribute to the building’s renovations.

Cherry said that summer art classes are ongoing and still open for enrollment by visiting the museum’s website or calling. Classes will not be affected by the renovations. 

“With the (Mississippi Arts + Entertainment Experience) open and all of the upgrades in downtown we just felt a need to upgrade as well,” Cherry said. “We are just one of the many cultural entities that we have in Meridian.”

Thursday’s fundraiser, “MARTinis at the Museum,” will begin at 6:30 p.m. and include a silent auction as well as signature cocktails and an artist presentation. For more information, call the Meridian Museum of Art at (601) 604-2648.

Public hours for the museum are 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday.