The Booth Museum’s Executive Director, Seth Hopkins, took the stage for this month’s Art for Lunch on Wednesday, October 3. Seth talked about the who, what, when and where he came across during his recent travels and the newest art the museum has acquired.
Annual CAA Trail ride
As an honorary member of the Cowboy Artists of America since 2015, Seth gets to join in on their annual trail ride. This year that took him to the Zapata and Matador Ranches near Alamosa, Colorado. The ranch borders the Great Sand Dunes National Park and Preserve which provided a great place for the trail ride portion of the week-long event. His photographs included incredible views of the dunes with snow-capped mountains in the distance. Also nearby is Zapata Falls, which Seth and his good friend, Tim Newton, explored during their trip. To their amusement, portions of the falls were still frozen solid!
King Ranch
Over the years, Seth has made friends with many prominent people in the Western world, including poet, singer, songwriter, and actor, Red Steagall. Each year Red takes about 35 special friends on a trip to a historic area in America, known as Red’s Rangers History Trip. This summer Seth got the opportunity to go with Red and the Rangers to South Texas to visit the iconic, King Ranch. Covering more than 825,000 acres, the ranch is a little larger than Rhode Island and boasts more than 120 miles of coastline on the Gulf of Mexico.
Santa Fe, New Mexico
Each year the Booth offers its Circle Members the chance to travel to an important art destination and spend a week visiting private collections, artists’ studios, galleries and museums. Seth calls it the “Trip of a Lifetime that Comes Around Every Year.” This year’s trip was to Santa Fe, New Mexico. The group had the opportunity to visit the sculpture compound of Allan Houser, very fitting timing with the upcoming exhibit Parallel Paths: The Art of Allan Houser and Harry Jackson opening in December 2024 at the Booth Museum. Other artists the members had the opportunity to visit included Kevin Box, P.A. Nesbit, Billy Schenck, B.C. Nowlin, Michael Naranjo, Tom Palmore, Michael Scott, Tony Abeyta and Rosetta Santiago.
Spaceflight
Hopkins also had the opportunity to see sculptor Ed Dwight go into space, when he watched the Blue Origin rocket launch in May 2024 in Texas. Dwight was America’s first black astronaut candidate, but did not get to go into space. He is now the oldest person to have gone into space – a few months older than William Shatner.
Buffalo Bill Show
Just recently Seth and Booth Curator Lisa Wheeler traveled to Cody, Wyoming to attend the Buffalo Bill Art Show and Sale. While in Wyoming they also conducted research on sculptor Harry Jackson for the upcoming exhibition Parallel Paths: The Art of Allan Houser and Harry Jackson, including a trip to the Pitch Fork Ranch, where Jackson worked as a cowboy when he was a teenager.
Stay tuned for the next Booth Blog post where we will discuss some of the new acquisitions to the museum’s collection!
