Flower Show. The exhibit received five awards, includ- 

 ing the Boston Globe's People's Choice Award for being 

 the show's most popular exhibit. 



March 



■ Fellowship The Center for Museum Studies, in col- 

 laboration with the Inter-University Program for Latino 

 Research (IUPLR) develops a new Rockefeller Humanities 

 Fellowship Program with the theme "Latino Cultural Re- 

 search in a National Museum Context: Issues of Repre- 

 sentation and Interpretation." The fellowships, a mix of 

 residencies for scholars and museum professionals, will be 

 interdisciplinary and will support Latino/a focused scholar- 

 ship using the extensive cultural, archival, historical, and 

 professional resources that only the Smithsonian can offer. 



March J 



gram with the Missouri Historical Society (MHS) in 

 St. Louis. The accessibility program collaborated with 

 the MHS to develop accessible exhibits fot the Society's 

 new wing. These exhibits, on the history of St. Louis, 

 were not only to be fully accessible to people with 

 disabilities but were also to include this group's par- 

 ticipation in the development of the city's history. 



March ^September j 



■ Exhibition The exhibition "Olowe of Ise: A Yoruba 

 Sculptor to Kings" at the National Museum of African 

 Art celebrated the work of one of Africa's greatest tradi- 

 tional sculptors, introducing visitors to Olowe 's distinc- 

 tive style of carving wood. The exhibition presented 

 more than 30 major works including the museum's 

 palace dooe and bowl with figures, as well as shrine 

 figures, veranda posts, and a mask. 



■ Exhibit Opening and Lecture Remote Oceania: Biol- 

 ogy, Archaeology, and History of Hawaii's Leeward Is- 

 lands, a lecture by Sheila Conant, professor of zoology at 

 the University of Hawaii, focused public attention on 

 the Zoo's new exhibit at the Bird House, "The Birds of 

 Paradise Lost." 



March 



■ Seminar In March, the National Air and Space 

 Museum's annual "Mutual Concerns of Air and Space 

 Museums" seminar, cohosted by the American Associa- 

 tion of Museums, brought more than 130 Air and Space 

 museum directors, curators, and other staff together for 

 three days of trading ideas and information concerning 

 their museums. 



March 7 



■ Outreach Archives of American Art Catalog Manager 

 Karen Weiss delivered a paper at the national Art 

 Librarians Society of North America (ARLIS) conference in 

 Philadelphia for the panel "Collection Level Records: Ar- 

 chivists and Librarians Share Solutions." She was joined by 

 colleagues from the Frick Art Reference Library, the Na- 

 tional Gallery of Canada, and the university archivist at 

 Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey. 



March JJ 



■ Professional Collaboration The Smithsonian Accessibility 

 Program began a four-month technical assistance pro- 



March 16-20 



■ Program The Center for Museum Studies offers the 

 annual "Awards for Museum Leadership" diversity semi- 

 nar. The program explores diversity issues in museums 

 and provides training opportunities for enhancing 

 leadership skills and competencies. 



March 18-21 



■ Collecting Archives of American Art Director 



Dr. Richard J. Wattenmaker, and Southeast Regional 

 Collector Dr. Liza Kirwin traveled to Puerto Rico to 

 meet with directors of museums and archives. The 

 purpose of the trip was twofold: To explore a potential 

 microfilming project documenting art in Puerto Rico 

 and to underscore the significance of the Archives' 

 current survey of art-related manuscript material in 

 Puerto Rico as the foundation for future research and 

 microfilming. 



March 19 



■ Exhibition In "Directions — Kiki Smith: Night" 

 (March 19-June 21, 1998), an American artist (b. 1954) 

 who energized figurative sculpture in the late 1980s 

 with her expressively anatomical images of the human 

 body revealed a new direction focused on nature. The 

 show, organized by Associate Curator Phyllis 

 Rosenzweig, featured a metaphorical, nocturnal ecosys- 

 tem consisting of a diorama-like photo-etching of 

 animals interacting at night and, filling the Directions 



30 



