Plan now to attend the 19th annual Prescott Indian Art Market July 9 and 10 at Sharlot Hall Museum.

The museum’s garden area will be the host to this Indian-art show featuring exquisite carvings, ceramics, sculpture, paintings, hand-woven baskets, blankets, and distinctive jewelry.

Artists producing traditional and contemporary artwork are juried by distinguished American Indian artists.

Plan to walk among demonstrators as they carve Katsina dolls, hammer silver, and weave baskets and rugs. Native American dancers, singers and musicians will provide entertainment provided throughout the weekend in the outdoor amphitheater.

The Prescott Indian Art Market is one of the Southwest’s premier Indian-art Markets.

Hours are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday and 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. on Sunday. Admission is $10 for the general public and $8 for museum members. Those 17 and younger are free.

Sharlot Hall Museum is located in the heart of downtown Prescott, two blocks west of the Courthouse Plaza at 415 W. Gurley St. For information, visit www.sharlot.org.

Of course you can visit Sharlot Hall Museum throughout the year for an educational and cultural experience. The museum focuses on the appreciation of historical, social, and natural aspects of Arizona.

The museum is named after Sharlot Mabridth Hall, a self-educated and highly literate child of the frontier. Born October 27,1870, she traveled with her family from Kansas to the Arizona Territory in 1882. Her impressions of this journey remained with her all of her life. She loved ideas and the written arts and expressed her fascination with Arizona frontier life through prose and poetry.

In 1909, Sharlot was appointed Territorial Historian and became the first woman to hold territorial office. At about this time she was also very active in the national political arena, first as a lobbyist and later as a presidential elector. In 1927, Sharlot agreed to move her extensive collection of artifacts and documents into the Old Governor’s Mansion and open it as a museum.

Her diligent efforts inspired others to contribute to the preservation of early Arizona history. After her death on April 9, 1943 a historical society continued her efforts to build the complex that bears her name. In 1981 Miss Hall became one of the first women elected to the Arizona Women’s Hall of Fame.