Stetson Museums to observe Smithsonian Museum Day on Sept. 22

Cory Lancaster September 15, 2018

Two DeLand campus museums — the Gillespie Museum, and the Homer and Dolly Hand Art Center — will be open on Saturday, Sept. 22, as part of Smithsonian Museum Day, an annual celebration of boundless curiosity hosted by Smithsonian Magazine.

The staff of the Gillespie Museum show fossils from their collection.

Museum Day represents a nationwide commitment to access, equity and inclusion. Both Stetson museums are always free for walk-in visitors; nationwide during this event, museums emulate the free admission policy at the Smithsonian Institution’s Washington, D.C.,-based museums.

The Gillespie Museum, located at 234 E. Michigan Ave., DeLand, will be open for a Science Saturday opportunity for young scientists. From 10 a.m. until noon, all are invited to browse the museum’s mineral collections and displays, including the recently opened Florida Formations, tracing 500 million years of the state’s geology. There is also a special exhibit on James Smithson, founding benefactor of the Smithsonian and an eighteenth-century mineralogist.

a colored sketch of a hillside with houses and a tree in the foreground.
“Lodi,” 1911, Oscar Bluemner

Visitors may add to their own mineral collections in the Collectors’ Corner. In keeping with the Smithsonian’s special focus on Women in STEM, the undergraduate staff members of the museum will explore with young visitors how their disciplinary studies — from archaeology to conservation, herpetology to marine biology — have prepared them for work in the museum’s programs and initiatives.

From noon until 4 p.m., the Hand Art Center at 139 E. Michigan Ave. will feature its three current exhibits — “Anni Holm: The Immigration Project,” which examines the ramifications of laws created after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11. The “Oscar Bluemner: Color Sketches” exhibit features 31 drawings that demonstrate Bluemner’s rapid assimilation of the various strands of Post-Impressionism, notably the expressive mark-making of Vincent Van Gogh, the compositional alchemy of Paul Cézanne, and the Divisionism color theory of the disciples of George Seurat.

black and white portraits hang on the walls of the Hand Art Center
The digital portraits of international students in the exhibit “Anni Holm: The Immigration Project” are composed of the fingerprints of each subject, resulting in a pixilated look.

In addition, this event will be a kickoff for Family Fun Saturdays. Visitors will enjoy hands-on art activities for kids of all ages.  Parking for the Hand Art Center is in the East Arizona parking lot, off of Amelia Avenue.

Free and open to all, these events offer Cultural Credit opportunities for Stetson undergraduates. Children under 16 must be accompanied by an adult. For more info, contact the Gillespie Museum ([email protected], 386.822.7330) or the Hand Art Center (386.822.7270).

For additional information, visit Smithsonian Museum Day or to download a Museum Day ticket.