The Ellen Noël Art Museum and four other, accredited West Texas art museums in the West Texas Triangle are featuring the work of Texas artist Joe Barrington.  In a reception held Thursday evening, June 12, the Ellen Noël Art Museum revealed Barrington’s sculpture that will be on display in the Museum’s Sculpture and Sensory Garden through Labor Day. Tiny the Driller on Daylight Tour, Rig #1, Lit’l Joe’s Drilling Company is a seven-foot metal sculpture enjoying a lunch of summer sausage and crackers.

Barrington is a Texas sculptor whose art reveals a sense of humor. He is a storyteller with his figurative work in metal. On his Web site, Barrington tells how his father gave him his first welding hood at the age of two as he followed his dad around the shop. “Cutting, welding, and forming steel has always been in my blood he said, “and then I discovered art.”

Barrington received his BFA in sculpture from Midwestern State University in 1980 and has been steadily welding his way onto the professional art scene. He lives in Throckmorton and his studio and gallery are in Albany.  His sculpture is drawn from a lifetime of living in rural Texas, with the people, animals, and folklore all being an integral part of the tales he shares with his viewers.

The West Texas Triangle is a consortium of accredited art museums consisting of the Ellen Noël Art Museum in Odessa, the San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts, The Old Jail Art Center in Albany, The Grace Museum in Abilene and The Museum of the Southwest in Midland.  Only five percent of museums in the entire United States are accredited by the American Association of Museums, so to have five accredited art museums in the West Texas area is a credit to the quality of those museums. 

In 2006, the consortium began a collective campaign using the tag line” West Texas Triangle – The Space for Art.”  Its first collaboration was exhibition of the works of internationally known Texas sculptor Jesus Moroles during the summer of 2007. 

Admission to the Ellen Noël Art Museum is free.  Hours of operation are 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday.  The Museum is closed on Mondays and on Friday, July 4, for the holiday.  For more information, call 550-9696 or go to the Museum’s Web site at www.noelartmuseum.org