Past Events

Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)

Free and open to all!

Join us at the Center of Southwest Studies for an insightful presentation and documentary film screening about the Cedar Mesa Perishables Project. Since 2011, the project has engaged the expertise of Pueblo fiber artists in its documentation of some 4,000 ancient textiles, baskets, wooden implements, and other organic cultural items excavated from dry caves in the greater Cedar Mesa region of southeastern Utah.

In this presentation, anthropologist, textile consultant, and project director Dr. Laurie Webster, together with Zuni fiber artist and team member Christopher Lewis (member of the Badger Clan and a child of the Corn Clan), will trace the project’s collaborative path and discuss how this approach has enriched archaeological understanding of ancestral Pueblo perishable technologies while also advocating for the preservation and revitalization of the Pueblo fiber arts.

The presentation will also include a screening of Languages of the Landscape: The Cedar Mesa Perishables Project, a 30-minute documentary produced by Cloudy Ridge Productions.

This is a featured event of the 2026 Southwest Colorado Humanities Roundtable History Live!

Darby Raymond-Overstreet (Diné), Woven Landscape: Twilight at Tsé Bit’ a’í, 2025, mixed-media/digital collage. Courtesy of the artist.

Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)

Free and open to all!

Join us for a special presentation by Darby Raymond-Overstreet, a featured artist in the Center of Southwest Studies’ current exhibition Constellations of Place.

Darby, born in Tuba City and raised in Flagstaff, Arizona, is an award-winning Diné artist who specializes in digital collage and printmaking to create powerful portraits, landscapes, and abstract forms inspired by and derived from traditional Diné textiles, with particular interest in pieces woven in the late 1800s-1950s. Her work has been featured in numerous publications, art markets, and exhibitions, including Horizons: Weaving Between the Lines with Diné Textiles at the Museum of Indian Arts and Culture (Santa Fe, NM), The Force is With Our People at the Museum of Northern Arizona (Flagstaff, AZ), and The Return of the Force at the Center of Southwest Studies.

Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)

Free and open to all!

Scott Graham, National Outdoor Book Award-winning author, will share insights into the writing and development of his successful National Park Mystery Series, published by nonprofit environmental and social justice publisher Torrey House Press.

Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)

Free and open to all!

Librarian by trade and angler at heart, Shelley Walchak gravitated towards fly-fishing later in life and was inspired in 2012 to leave her post at the Colorado State Library to take up the challenge of fishing a river a week for an entire year. Seven Rocky Mountain states and 52 rivers later, Shelley released her book 52 Rivers in 2014, documenting her adventures and life-lessons learned along the way. Now, over a decade later, Shelley is still traveling and angling and is ready to share an epilogue to 52 Rivers, which at its core is about chasing dreams, embracing the unknown, and finding inner joy along the way.

Location: CSWS Gallery

Free and open to all! Light refreshments provided.

Parking on campus is free during the summer, May to August.

Join us in celebrating the summer solstice on Sunday, June 21. At the dawn of the solstice, a spiral of sunlight from the Center's solstice window makes its way across the gallery walls. Arrive early to ensure you don't miss the impressive display.

As the sun reaches the building, you are invited to join us in creating a cyanotype print in the Center’s courtyard!  All supplies will be provided, but bringing personal knickknacks and small objects is encouraged.

Location: Center of Southwest Studies Lyceum (Room 120) 

Free + Open to All, Refreshments will be offered in the CSWS Reception Room 

The CSWS is pleased to partner with Dr. Rebecca Austin, Fort Lewis College Professor of Anthropology & Environmental Studies, for a special event that will share screenings of two episodes of the award-winning documentary series VS. GOLIATH: Appalachia and Greater Chaco. A brief intermission will be held between films, followed by a panel discussion at 6:00 p.m. with in-person and virtual guests.

Location: Robert Delaney Southwest Research Library and Archives

Free and open to all.

Celebrating Earth Day & FLC Arts April!

Join us for the closing reception of Herpetofauna of the Center: A Collection of Scales, which showcases a selection of objects from the museum collection that feature reptiles and amphibians as subject matter. The pieces represent an array of artistic media, stylistic choices, and cultural contexts. Herpetofauna is curated by recent Fort Lewis College graduate, Lacy Miller, whose aim is to draw attention to the importance of herpetofauna to ecosystems around the globe.

Image Credit: Evan Benally Atwood, Window Rock, AZ

Location: CSWS Lyceum (Room 120)

Free and open to all.

Celebrating Earth Day & FLC Arts April!

Join us at the Center of Southwest Studies for a special artist talk with Diné photographer and curator, Rapheal Begay. 

Rapheal is a “visual storyteller” based in Tségháhoodzání (Window Rock, Arizona), who uses cultural landscape photography, Indigenous storytelling traditions, and land-based knowledge to inform his creative practice, and to preserve memory and understanding found within the Diné way of life. 

Location: Noble 130

Free and open to all!

Join Center of Southwest Studies Director, Dr. Cory Pillen, and Collections Manager & Fort Lewis College NAGPRA Coordinator, Amy Cao, as they discuss the exciting collaboration between The Metropolitan Museum of Art’s (The Met) Department of Scientific Research, the Center of Southwest Studies, and the FLC Chemistry Department. Over a week of creative inquiry, faculty, staff, students, and select community partners learned how to conduct materials research locally, building long-term capacity for interdisciplinary teaching and ethical, community-centered collections stewardship in the Southwest.

This event is hosted by the FLC Professional Associates’ Life-Long Learning program. Learn more here.

Location: CSWS Gallery

Free and open to the public.

Join us Saturday evening for a special open house, with light refreshments provided by the Colorado 150 SW group.

Constellations of Place, guest curated by Dr. Meranda Roberts (Yerington Paiute, Chicana), is a major exhibition rooted in the landscapes and layered histories of Southwest Colorado.  Featuring a selection of works from the Center of Southwest Studies' permanent collections alongside the work of thirteen contemporary Native American, Indigenous, and Latinx artists, Constellations of Place resists romanticized visions of the region and instead affirms these communities’ artistic practices as acts of memory, relation, and survivance. This exhibition and related programming are made possible with generous support from the Belonging Colorado initiative of The Denver Foundation and The Greater Good Science Center and is in partnership with the America 250 - Colorado 150 Southwest regional “Power of Place” initiative.