Thursday Evening Events
4:45 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Exhibit Hall Reception
Don't miss this opportunity to visit the exhibit booths and learn about wonderful museum products and services. Enjoy delicious hors d'oeuvres and meet with friends old and new!
Hosted by Harvard University Extension School/Master of Liberal Arts in Museum Studies
6:15 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
An Evening in Newport: Rough Point and the Newport Art Museum
Join your colleagues for cocktails and hors d’oeuvres at the beautiful Rough Point Mansion followed by dinner at the Newport Art Museum. Rough Point is a vast English Manorial house built in 1889 on a dramatic, windswept promontory on Newport’s Cliff Walk, overlooking the Atlantic Ocean. Once owned by Doris Duke, the estate was bequeathed to the Newport Restoration Foundation, founded to help preserve Newport’s architectural heritage.
Dinner will then be served in the Newport Art Museum’s Griswold House, a National Historic Landmark and an Official Project of Save America’s Treasures designed by famed architect Richard Morris Hunt. Across the sculpture garden is architect William Delano’s Cushing Memorial Gallery. Both buildings house the museum’s galleries, which showcase the visual arts of Newport and southeastern New England, reflecting both the rich heritage of the past and the lively art scene of the present. Attendees will have time to enjoy the exhibition, The Eloquence of Place: Newport Restoration Foundation and 40 Years of Preservation.
Pre-registration is required. Registration fee of $45 includes dinner, complimentary wine and transportation.
6:20 p.m. - 10:00 p.m.
An Evening at Slater Mill
Does your image of an old mill include acres of bricks? Think again! Nestled along the Blackstone River, the beautifully-preserved, warm and inviting wooden structure of Slater Mill beckons you. Enjoy an evening of rich history, delicious food and wine and lively music by Fleur de Lis. Take a tour of the site, see the new textile and fine craft center, visit the shop and gallery. The 1793 architecture of this National Historic Landmark is as unique as its story: Slater Mill is known as the Birthplace of Industrialization in America. Here, cotton spinning found a new home, and generations of families contributed to America’s rise. Today, this Rhode Island icon remains a powerful engine for tourism, education and community. Don’t miss this joyous evening event.
Pre-registration is required. Registration fee of $43 includes dinner, complimentary wine, entertainment and transportation.
6:25 p.m. - 9:45 p.m.
Directors and Trustees Dinner at the Culinary Arts Museum
Hosted by Museum Search & Reference
The Culinary Arts Museum invites friends and colleagues to partake of a fabulous dinner prepared by chefs from the celebrated College of Culinary Arts at Johnson & Wales University. Enjoy hors d’oeuvres in the museum’s 1833 tap room, or alongside the 1926 diner, or on the country fair midway, all features of permanent exhibits on display. The Culinary Arts Museum offers a comprehensive glimpse into our gastronomic past, ranging from A Pantheon of Chefs to Dripping with Color: The Art of the Fruit Crate Label to Diners: Still Cookin’ in the 21st Century and more. Don’t eat beforehand.
Pre-registration is required. Registration fee of $48 includes dinner, complimentary wine and transportation.
Conference Evening Events
5:15 p.m. – 5:45 p.m.
Newcomers Reception
Meet NEMA staff, board
members, and your local hosts over refreshments in a casual
reception designed just for you. This is your chance to become acquainted
with NEMA and to hear the inside story of this year's conference.
Whether you're new to the profession, the region, or just new to
NEMA, please plan to join us. We'll be expecting you!
Hosted by Tufts University Museum Studies Program
Wednesday Evening in Providence
6:15 p.m. – 10:00 p.m.
Join your colleagues for the best that the Renaissance City has to offer in art, historic houses, college and university galleries, and community organizations. Your Evening in Providence includes a choice of three thematic progressive events, or a chance to explore the newly expanded spaces at the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD). Refreshments will be provided at host locations, and the evening concludes with a sumptuous dinner hosted by the RISD Museum of Art.
Pre-registration is required. Registration fee of $47 includes dinner, complimentary wine and transportation for any one of the following options.
Tour One: University Museums and Galleries
Explore two of Brown University’s campus galleries. The David Winton Bell Gallery, Brown’s museum of contemporary art, is located on the crest of College Hill in the List Art Center, designed by renowned architect Philip Johnson. Your visit includes a chance to view the Bell Gallery’s fall exhibition, Elizabeth King: The Sizes of Things in the Mind’s Eye. A short walk to Brown’s College Green brings you to the satellite gallery of the Haffenreffer Museum of Anthropology, housed in the Greek revival Manning Hall, one of Brown’s oldest buildings. There you will tour the student-curated exhibition, Believing Africa. Your evening concludes with a short walk through Providence’s historic East Side for dinner at the RISD Museum of Art.
Tour Two: AS220 and the Providence Children’s Museum
Begin your evening at AS220, a non-profit community arts space located in downtown Providence that includes galleries, performance spaces, studios, a print shop and a dark room. AS220’s mission is to provide an unjuried and uncensored forum for the arts. Unfettered fun is a short bus ride away in the lively hands-on learning environment of Providence Children’s Museum. Revel in the power of play in the Museum’s newest exhibit, Play Power, where you’ll construct crazy contraptions that send balls rolling down ramps and through tunnels, experiment with sound, magnets, air and light, and rediscover that play is the root of learning and creativity. The evening concludes with a bus ride to dinner at the RISD Museum of Art.
Tour Three: Historic House Museums
The East Side of Providence is your destination for visits to three historic house museums. First is the Governor Henry Lippitt House, an 1865 Renaissance-style mansion featuring hand-carved woodwork, intricate stenciling, elaborate chandeliers and stained glass windows. Then a bus takes you to open houses at two of Providence’s grand eighteenth-century mansions. The John Brown House, a three-story brick building completed in 1788, was described by John Quincy Adams as “the most magnificent and elegant private mansion that I have ever seen on this continent.” Across the street is the Nightingale-Brown House, home to five successive generations of the Brown family, including John Nicholas Brown, who oversaw a Colonial Revival remodeling of his ancestral home. Your evening concludes with a short walk on historic Benefit Street for dinner at the RISD Museum of Art.
Tour Four: An Evening at the Museum of Art at the Rhode Island School of Design
Join colleagues at the RISD Museum of Art for an evening of fine food, gracious atmosphere and an encyclopedic collection of over 80,000 works of art, ranging from ancient Greek and Roman sculpture to French Impressionist paintings, from Chinese stone and terracotta sculpture to contemporary art in every medium, including textiles, ceramics, glass and furniture.
During the conference, the RISD Museum of Art will be celebrating the recent grand opening of the new Chace Center, a five-story multi-use building designed by architect José Rafael Moneo, featuring a site-specific installation by renowned glass artist and RISD alumnus Dale Chihuly.
At the conclusion of the evening, attendees from other Evening in Providence events will join you for an elegant dinner.