New Mexico State University Art Museum Director Marisa Sage and her co-curator artist Laurel Nakadate spent two years preparing the premiere exhibit, “Labor: Motherhood & Art in 2020,” only to have the worldwide pandemic force them to close the doors of the brand new museum after a few weeks.

While several entertainment and recreation venues are shuttering amid COVID-19 concerns, Las Vegas museums are planning to remain open.

An interview series spotlighting some of the creative community members in the US Southwest.

Name a female scientist. Could you do it?

Alisha Kerlin holds up a white 3D print of a 2,000-year-old Mesoamerican animal sculpture like a proud mom at a soccer game. “I have a very intimate relationship with this collection,” she beams. For the duration of our museum tour, she carries the replica around, clutching it under her arm like a football. “I didn’t realize his toe was broken,” she says, as if she should have traveled back in time 2 millennia to stop the damage. If she could, she would.

Welcome to Andrew Schoultz’s world.

It’s easy to take museums for granted. Or, worse, to think of them just as warehouses for stuff from the past.

The fine arts space soon to be known as the Barrick Museum of Art began life in 1967, even before it was part of the UNLV campus proper. In 1975, it became the UNLV Museum of Natural History and moved into the school’s old gym space (hence the presence of cartoon-wolf mascot Beauregard on the gallery floor today). Its first contemporary art exhibit took place in 1986, three years before the Marjorie Barrick part of the name got added.