Museum visitors can get hands-on creating textiles

Interactive participation is taking center stage at Richmond Art Museum, where visitors of all ages are helping create textile works as part of a hands-on exhibit open through March 28.

Richmond’s Earlham College has loaned looms, and Richmond High School students are among those who are creating pieces being hung in the galleries during the “Connection to Freedom: Works by Mason Archie” show.

Museum officials call Archie a distinguished American oil painter whose work stands at the intersection of masterful traditional realism and profound historical storytelling.

“Mason Archie’s command of realism serves not merely as technical virtuosity but as a vehicle for storytelling — bridging past and present, beauty and truth,” a news release said. “His paintings invite reflection, foster understanding and connect viewers to histories that continue to shape our collective identity.”

The artistic journey for Archie, a Dayton, Ohio, native now based in Indianapolis, has spanned more than four decades. After more than 15 years in commercial art as art director and pictorial artist for Lamar Outdoor Advertising, he decided to pursue fine art full time in 2005.

Archie’s work has been exhibited at some of the nation’s most respected cultural institutions, including Schuster Art Center, Indianapolis Museum of Art at Newfields, Indiana State Museum, National African American Museum & Cultural Center, Indianapolis Art Center, Chicago Museum of Science and Industry,and Herron Galleries.

His works also can be found in collections of corporations such as Nationwide, Wells Fargo and Elanco, and Indianapolis-area health systems such as Eskenazi Health and Community South Hospital. 

Archie’s paintings have been featured in leading art publications such as American Art Collector, American Lifestyle Magazine, the American Art Review and the International Review of African American Art.

He also has won several honors in Hoosier Art Salon’s annual juried exhibitions.