Community Calendar

This summer, the NMSU Art Museum welcomes the return of Louis Ocepek, local artist, former Department Head, and Professor Emeritus of the NMSU Department of Art for his solo exhibition: Homage to Then/Small Worlds. This exhibition opens June 11, 2026 and will be on display in the museum’s Mullennix Bridge Gallery through September 12, 2026. Please join us for the opening reception on June 11 from 4:30-6:30 pm.

Homage to Then/Small Worlds is a two-part exhibition of direct gravure prints, gouache paintings, and digital prints that pay tribute to a history of artistic influences and explore the abstracted physical world. Homage to Then comprises sixteen gravure prints and four gouache paintings, while Small Worlds features an array of acrylic and gouache paintings on paper and chromogenic prints. The detailed selection in Homage to Then/Small Worlds reflects on the aesthetics of time, space, and the perceptions of our physical and metaphysical worlds.

Louis Ocepek is an artist and designer born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He studied design and fine art at Wayne State University, and earned his graduate degree from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He was a professor in the art departments of Montana State University, Portland State University, and New Mexico State University, where he served as Department Head for several years while teaching additional courses in the NMSU Honors College. Ocepek works in a variety of media–exhibiting prints, paintings and hybrid works in national and international group and solo exhibitions. His work is included in the public art collections of Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Texas. Ocepek is the author of Graphic Design: Vision, Process, Product and his design work has been featured in publications such as Graphis International and The Painter Wow!.

August 2026 at the Deming Art Center will feature three local artists - Jeff Cooper, Mary Jo Stenson and Jesse Kriegel. These talented artists will each bring their own unique works to the gallery for August exhibit. Jeff Cooper is presenting various coil built pottery pieces and he has also built clay flutes with a Native American sound. Mary Jo Stenson loves painting water – whether it be clouds, rivers, mist, etc., and Jesse Kriegel, one of Deming’s High School Art teachers, will surprise us with his always interesting creations.
There will be a time to meet these talented student artists on Sunday, August 2, 2026, from 1-2:30PM at the Deming Art Center which is located at 100 S. Gold St., Deming, NM.
The gallery hours are 10AM – 4PM Monday – Friday and 10AM – 1PM on Saturday. For more information, please call 575-546-3663, visit our website at www.demingarts.org or see our Facebook page.
This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

This summer, the NMSU Art Museum welcomes the return of Louis Ocepek, local artist, former Department Head, and Professor Emeritus of the NMSU Department of Art for his solo exhibition: Homage to Then/Small Worlds. This exhibition opens June 11, 2026 and will be on display in the museum’s Mullennix Bridge Gallery through September 12, 2026. Please join us for the opening reception on June 11 from 4:30-6:30 pm.

Homage to Then/Small Worlds is a two-part exhibition of direct gravure prints, gouache paintings, and digital prints that pay tribute to a history of artistic influences and explore the abstracted physical world. Homage to Then comprises sixteen gravure prints and four gouache paintings, while Small Worlds features an array of acrylic and gouache paintings on paper and chromogenic prints. The detailed selection in Homage to Then/Small Worlds reflects on the aesthetics of time, space, and the perceptions of our physical and metaphysical worlds.

Louis Ocepek is an artist and designer born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He studied design and fine art at Wayne State University, and earned his graduate degree from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He was a professor in the art departments of Montana State University, Portland State University, and New Mexico State University, where he served as Department Head for several years while teaching additional courses in the NMSU Honors College. Ocepek works in a variety of media–exhibiting prints, paintings and hybrid works in national and international group and solo exhibitions. His work is included in the public art collections of Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Texas. Ocepek is the author of Graphic Design: Vision, Process, Product and his design work has been featured in publications such as Graphis International and The Painter Wow!.

August 2026 at the Deming Art Center will feature three local artists - Jeff Cooper, Mary Jo Stenson and Jesse Kriegel. These talented artists will each bring their own unique works to the gallery for August exhibit. Jeff Cooper is presenting various coil built pottery pieces and he has also built clay flutes with a Native American sound. Mary Jo Stenson loves painting water – whether it be clouds, rivers, mist, etc., and Jesse Kriegel, one of Deming’s High School Art teachers, will surprise us with his always interesting creations.
There will be a time to meet these talented student artists on Sunday, August 2, 2026, from 1-2:30PM at the Deming Art Center which is located at 100 S. Gold St., Deming, NM.
The gallery hours are 10AM – 4PM Monday – Friday and 10AM – 1PM on Saturday. For more information, please call 575-546-3663, visit our website at www.demingarts.org or see our Facebook page.
This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

New Mexico State University Library is one of 50 U.S. libraries newly selected to host Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association (ALA) that examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public. Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and ’40s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.

The NMSU Library will offer four free public programs in conjunction with the exhibition that will take place at 3 p.m. on the third floor of Zuhl Library. The series begins with an opening reception on Thursday, Aug. 27, from 5-7 p.m., followed by Andy Holten sharing “A Holocaust Testimony: Experiences of a Hidden Child during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands” on Sept. 3; “New Mexicans and the Holocaust: Stories of Action and Accountability” with historians Jamie Bronstein and Dylan McDonald takes place on Sept. 10; “Refuge in the Land of Enchantment: Holocaust Survivors Who Made New Mexico Home” will be presented by New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum’s Camelia Caton-Garcia on Sept. 17; and the documentary “Nazi Town, USA” will be screened followed by a Q&A session with director Peter Yost on Sept. 24.

Self-Guided tours give you the freedom to visit at your own pace; plan for at least 30 minutes to engage with the text panels and interactive multimedia elements throughout the exhibit. Visitors are welcome to view the exhibit whenever Zuhl Library is open.

The NMSU Art Museum is excited to announce the opening of Mapping Spaces: Selections from the Lannan Art Collection at NMSU. This exhibition will showcase selections from the generous gift of 63 works of art from the Lannan Art Collection to the NMSU Permanent Art Collection in 2024. Mapping Spaces will open in the Contemporary Gallery on Thursday, June 11th, and run until September 5th, 2026.

After almost 65 years, with 27 of those spent in Santa Fe, New Mexico, Lannan Foundation closed in 2024. As part of Lannan’s closure, the Foundation gifted its remaining collection of more than 1,600 objects to 55 institutions, including the NMSU Art Museum. By adding these pieces to the UAM’s collection, this gift deepens the significance of the works by placing them into an academic context, where teaching, research, and public engagement further activate each of them. The NMSU Permanent Art Collection continues to evolve and grow not only as a repository of contemporary art objects, but also as a living resource that invites ongoing dialogue about the role of artists in shaping how the NMSU and Las Cruces communities understand our dynamic border region.

Featuring artists such as Claudia Andujar, Subhankar Banerjee, Max Cole, Pard Morrison, Victoria Sambunaris, and James Turrell, Mapping Spaces brings together a dynamic range of artists whose works explore landscapes and the environment, documentary photography, abstraction, and traditional art historical references. Together, this exhibition features artists at the center of the UAM’s mission, emphasizing the importance of continued support for art, research, and community-engaged practices in cultivating a creative ecosystem across New Mexico.

Join us for the opening reception on June 11th from 4:30-6:30 PM. The museum is open Tuesday-Saturday, 10am-4pm. Admission to all programming is free and open to the public. For more information and a detailed calendar with associated programs and dates please visit uam.nmsu.edu.

This summer, the NMSU Art Museum welcomes the return of Louis Ocepek, local artist, former Department Head, and Professor Emeritus of the NMSU Department of Art for his solo exhibition: Homage to Then/Small Worlds. This exhibition opens June 11, 2026 and will be on display in the museum’s Mullennix Bridge Gallery through September 12, 2026. Please join us for the opening reception on June 11 from 4:30-6:30 pm.

Homage to Then/Small Worlds is a two-part exhibition of direct gravure prints, gouache paintings, and digital prints that pay tribute to a history of artistic influences and explore the abstracted physical world. Homage to Then comprises sixteen gravure prints and four gouache paintings, while Small Worlds features an array of acrylic and gouache paintings on paper and chromogenic prints. The detailed selection in Homage to Then/Small Worlds reflects on the aesthetics of time, space, and the perceptions of our physical and metaphysical worlds.

Louis Ocepek is an artist and designer born and raised in Detroit, Michigan. He studied design and fine art at Wayne State University, and earned his graduate degree from the University of Iowa in Iowa City. He was a professor in the art departments of Montana State University, Portland State University, and New Mexico State University, where he served as Department Head for several years while teaching additional courses in the NMSU Honors College. Ocepek works in a variety of media–exhibiting prints, paintings and hybrid works in national and international group and solo exhibitions. His work is included in the public art collections of Oregon, Washington, New Mexico and Texas. Ocepek is the author of Graphic Design: Vision, Process, Product and his design work has been featured in publications such as Graphis International and The Painter Wow!.

August 2026 at the Deming Art Center will feature three local artists - Jeff Cooper, Mary Jo Stenson and Jesse Kriegel. These talented artists will each bring their own unique works to the gallery for August exhibit. Jeff Cooper is presenting various coil built pottery pieces and he has also built clay flutes with a Native American sound. Mary Jo Stenson loves painting water – whether it be clouds, rivers, mist, etc., and Jesse Kriegel, one of Deming’s High School Art teachers, will surprise us with his always interesting creations.
There will be a time to meet these talented student artists on Sunday, August 2, 2026, from 1-2:30PM at the Deming Art Center which is located at 100 S. Gold St., Deming, NM.
The gallery hours are 10AM – 4PM Monday – Friday and 10AM – 1PM on Saturday. For more information, please call 575-546-3663, visit our website at www.demingarts.org or see our Facebook page.
This project is supported in part by New Mexico Arts, a division of the Department of Cultural Affairs, and by the National Endowment for the Arts.

Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle is a Pop-Up exhibition curated by current and recently graduated NMSU students. The exhibition invites viewers to learn the many ways in which iconic artworks and ubiquitous motifs from the past have transcended their periods of creation and are continuously recycled in contemporary art. Artworks from regional, international, and student artists from the NMSU Permanent Art Collection are paired with recognizable works from a broad spectrum of art history to explore how the past simultaneously lives on and is disrupted by contemporary art. This exhibition aids viewers with educational guides including contextual information and interpretive suggestions, providing a framework to consciously observe the history of art beyond this exhibition.

Art History: Reduce, Reuse, Recycle will be open to the public starting on August 7th through September 19th, 2026, in the Bunny Conlon Modern & Contemporary Art Gallery. Please join us for the Public Reception on Friday, August 28th from 5:00pm to 7:00pm.

New Mexico State University Library is one of 50 U.S. libraries newly selected to host Americans and the Holocaust, a traveling exhibition from the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum and the American Library Association (ALA) that examines the motives, pressures and fears that shaped Americans’ responses to Nazism, war and genocide in Europe during the 1930s and 1940s.

The 1,100-square-foot exhibition examines various aspects of American society: the government, the military, refugee aid organizations, the media and the general public. Drawing on a remarkable collection of primary sources from the 1930s and ’40s, the exhibition tells the stories of Americans who acted in response to Nazism, challenging the commonly held assumptions that Americans knew little and did nothing about the Nazi persecution and murder of Jews as the Holocaust unfolded. It provides a portrait of American society that shows how the Depression, isolationism, xenophobia, racism and antisemitism shaped responses to Nazism and the Holocaust.

The NMSU Library will offer four free public programs in conjunction with the exhibition that will take place at 3 p.m. on the third floor of Zuhl Library. The series begins with an opening reception on Thursday, Aug. 27, from 5-7 p.m., followed by Andy Holten sharing “A Holocaust Testimony: Experiences of a Hidden Child during the Nazi Occupation of the Netherlands” on Sept. 3; “New Mexicans and the Holocaust: Stories of Action and Accountability” with historians Jamie Bronstein and Dylan McDonald takes place on Sept. 10; “Refuge in the Land of Enchantment: Holocaust Survivors Who Made New Mexico Home” will be presented by New Mexico Holocaust & Intolerance Museum’s Camelia Caton-Garcia on Sept. 17; and the documentary “Nazi Town, USA” will be screened followed by a Q&A session with director Peter Yost on Sept. 24.

Self-Guided tours give you the freedom to visit at your own pace; plan for at least 30 minutes to engage with the text panels and interactive multimedia elements throughout the exhibit. Visitors are welcome to view the exhibit whenever Zuhl Library is open.