Wishing You A wonderful Mother's Day |
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There is no way to be a perfect mother, and a million ways to be a good one. – Jill Churchill
The DMFAH wishes all a Happy Mother’s Day
Here are the secrets of Mother’s Day and its history, and why we celebrate on the second Sunday of May the sacrifices mothers make for their children. The origin of Mother’s Day, as we know it took, place in the early 1900s. A woman named Anna Jarvis started a campaign for an official holiday honoring mothers in 1905, the year her own mother died. The first larger-scale celebration of the holiday was in 1908, when Jarvis held a public memorial for her mother in her hometown of Grafton, West Virginia.
Over the next few years, Jarvis pushed to have the holiday officially recognized, and it was celebrated increasingly in more and more states around the U.S. Finally, in 1914, President Woodrow Wilson signed a proclamation making Mother’s Day an official holiday, to take place the second Sunday of May.
Anna Jarvis put Mother’s Day on the calendar as a day dedicated to expressing love and gratitude to mothers, acknowledging the sacrifices women make for their children. That’s why she was determined to keep “Mother’s” a singular possessive, as marked by the apostrophe before “s.” Each family should celebrate its own mother, so that individual women across the country could feel the love, even in the midst of a broad celebration of motherhood. Putting a personal touch – a handmade card; a self composed song; a poem or freshly cut bouquet.
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Averett Updates Museum Education Units |
The DMFAH receives tremendous academic support from Averett
On Tuesday morning, May 4, 2021 Averett Education majors under the direction of Dr. Nancy Riddell presented six lesson units, each of which holds five two-week lesson plans for the public schools and for Danville and Pittsylvania teachers. These units were specifically created around the current DMFAH collections and the topics addressed: (1) The Civil Rights Movement (2) Lives During the Civil War (3) Social Justice (4) Resources of Virginia (5) Past and Present (including the Camilla Williams Collection) (6) Local Legends and People (Including race-car driver Wendall Scott). Each unit includes a wide range of lesson plans and interactive materials as well as flashdrives, that will become available for school-teachers to check out from the museum at the end of the summer. Please stay tuned as we will announce these units, and allow you to register online to reserve and receive these. The Museum thanks Sarah Toothman, Makayla Woods, Morgan Dills, Kailyn Richi, Morgan Jones, Jordan Bennett and the fantastic leadership of Dr. Nancy Riddell on this herculean task and coordination of Virginia SOL standards and the DMFAH collections data into accessible education units for all.
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Crossroads: Change in Rural America, a Smithsonian show coming to the town of Chatham |
Museum ED meets with Chatham First
On Thursday, May 6th, museum director Elsabé Dixon gave a presentation on the Smithsonian Exhibition Crossroads: Change In Rural America to Chatham First and community partners, ODAC and Reid Street Gallery, as well as members of the Chatham Rotary. This is a Museum on Main Street exhibition traveling to 30 states through 2024. This traveling Smithsonian exhibition will be going up in Chatham Virginia on October 16, 2021, and will serve the town of Chatham, as well as the outlying rural Pittsylvania communities. A coalition of support under the leadership of Chatham First will help facilitate the Smithsonian Exhibition, but also help in creating meaningful programming with the help of the Pittsylvania County Library System and the Chatham Historical Society as well as the NAACP. We hope this exhibition enables us to come together around local issues of history and culture. Crossroads: Change in Rural America offers small towns a chance to look at their own paths to highlight the changes that have affected their fortunes over the past century. The exhibition will prompt discussions about what happened when America’s rural population became a minority of the country’s population and the ripple effects that occurred.
Despite the massive economic and demographic impacts brought on by these changes, America’s small towns continue to focus creatively on new opportunities for growth and development. Economic innovation and a focus on the cultural facets that make small towns unique, comfortable, and desirable have helped many communities create their own renaissance. The future is bright for much of rural America, as small towns embrace the notion that their citizens and their cultural uniqueness are important assets.
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Join us every Wednesday starting June at 6pm on the front lawn of the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History for a FREE community play reading. Read a role or just read along! Bring a chair or blanket. Pet friendly. Outside food allowed. Please clean up any trash and pick up after your dogs. Light refreshments and water will be provided. This special summer series is FREE thanks to support from the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History and the Daly Foundation. In the event of rain, we will move to the DMFAH auditorium. Please note that some plays may not be appropriate for children. |
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Service Spotlight: Porch Renovations for the Sutherlin Mansion |
You might have noticed that our large Camilla Williams Poster has been removed and that something “ exciting” is happening on the Sutherlin Mansion Front porch. City restoration workers are leaning into this project for the next two month before the heat of summer arrives. Mark McFadden is working to restore the porch rails and stabilize the porch floor both on the ground level and on the second floor level. Older Sutherlin Mansion banister rails are being used as blueprints from which the new rails are being forged to conserve the historical front façade for the new Museum porch. He is assisted, in this work, by Steve Farlow. The porch wood will be specially milled. The city is having the wood match the milling on the second floor window balcony, which is original construction. The upper balcony rails and posts will also be replaced. It will take 2 months to get the wood, and have it milled for that repair. The city will start work on the upper balcony after they finish the porch. Upon completion of the touch-up at the main building the city plans to paint the entire exterior of the annex house on Sutherlin.
In addition to Ricky Luck mowing the mansion lawn every two weeks, City Maintenance Manager Rick Drazenovich has contracted with a landscape firm to bring the grass up to a standard of quality.
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Union Street Pocket Park Ribbon Cutting |
A ribbon cutting ceremony took place on Wednesday morning this week at 10am for the South Union Street pocket park. A crew put the finishing touches on the South Union Street pocket park in April as they prepared for the ribbon cutting on Monday, May 3 (which was postponed due to weather). For those who work or live downtown, and for those who come to shop, this park will offer a place to step outside, take a break, enjoy lunch, or simply to relax and enjoy the outdoors. River City TV aired the live event on Facebook. Danville officials planned this pocket park for South Union Street downtown to provide a small getaway for visitors and residents looking for a place to sit and relax. Downtowns are typically dense with lots of buildings close together, as well as sidewalks, streets and other “hard” elements of a cityscape, said Corrie Teague Bobe, acting director of economic development for Danville (in a Danville Register article by John Crane). A pocket park with green space and other amenities can offer a contrast. “It provides a soft-scape,” Bobe said. The Bee Hotel forms a horseshoe around the pocket park.
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Veronica Jackson Artist Talk with Duke TRHT Group
Tuesday MAY 11 (Zoom)
At 6:30pm
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Veronica Jackson’s work is autobiographical, stems from her position as a black woman marking space, and responds to the travails of her ancestors. She has a multidisciplinary visual-art practice based on an interpretive exhibit design, and architecture career spanning more than three decades. Jackson tells stories using quotidian objects such as felt-lined bulletin boards, clothing, hair, handmade paper, timecards, and text. Her work addresses several internal queries arising from her plight as a black woman in America: What does it mean to be invisible? How does the designation of invisibility affect her identity and sense of self?
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ART HISTORY Spotlight: Working with Ordinary Materials |
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Spotlight on Artist Michaelangelo Pistoletto |
Michaelangelo Pistoletto worked with ordinary materials to make extraordinary visual statements.
Muretti di Stracci, by Paul Nyzam
Between 1967 and 1968, during a particularly turbulent political and cultural period, Italian artist Michelangelo Pistoletto created a series of sculptures that would prove decisive in post-war history of art. We are talking about Muretti di Stracci, or literally « little fabric walls ». These walls were created from bricks individually wrapped in colored fabric, all different, creating multicolored constructions, the function of which was not to fence a space off nor prevent passage but just exist as autonomous works of art.
The work called Muretti di Stracci laid one of the first stones in what art critic Germano Celant would dub the Arte Povera movement. Describing A poor art, using accessible materials/ basic raw materials – sand, wood, terracotta, coal, plant material, tobacco, tar, rope, hair, burlap, yarn etc. – to better anchor itself in real life. An art in tune with the era that gave birth to it – radical and subversive, and driven by a spirit of revolt as well as poetry.
Shown on left: Muretti di Stacci and Venus of the Rags
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WANDERLOVE Knitting Partners Unite Efforts |
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Bringing WANDERLOVE Together in the month of May |
VCU Massey Cancer Center outreach office in Danville is asking for contributions to the Danville Museum of Fine Arts & History's Wanderlove: Threads of Connection yarn bombing effort. With guidance from the city's Parks and Rec team and the Dan River Basin Association, this public art installation will go up along Danville's River Walk Trail in July. From now through the end of May, our office is asking knitters to contribute what they can to this exciting project. Please participate in the Fiber Lab workshops or send in knitted scarves and bright 12” x 30” squares to incorporate. Even if you do not knit, we are calling volunteers for cutting and up-cycling sweaters as well as sewing colorful stiped fibers together. Use any and all colors! But remember the golden rule for Yarn Bombing – Put light colors against dark colors for the best effect. The museum recommends alternating between dark bright and light bright colored rows.
In addition, please look at the opportunities to get together to work on all this with friends and family. We look forward to seeing everybody.
WANDERLOVE: A Stich In Time SIP&SEW Events and Riverwalks
Join us in cutting and up-cycling sweaters for the WANDERLOVE Exhibition! Learn what it takes to get gallery representation on Craghead... Join the WANDERLOVE COLLABORATION!!
Morning Fiber Lab: (10am -12 noon)
May 12 and 14: Fiber Lab (DMFAH Auditorium)
May 19 and 21: Fiber Lab (DMFAH Auditorium)
Evening Fiber Lab: (5pm – 9pm)
Thursday May 13: Evening Fiber Lab (DMFAH Auditorium)
Thursday May 27: Evening Fiber Lab (DMFAH Auditorium)
Evening Sip and Sew (Adults only) – 6pm to 9pm
Tuesday May 11: WANDERLOVE Sip & Sew (Crema and Vine)
Tuesday May 18: WANDERLOVE Sip & Sew (Crema and Vine)
Saturday May 22: WANDERLOVE Sip &Sew (2 Witches)
Tuesday May 25: WANDERLOVE Sip & Sew (Crema and Vine)
River Walks to pick Sites – 4:30pm to 5:30pm (Meeting at Ballad Afterward)
Friday May 14: WANDERLOVE Riverwalk Trail
Friday May 28: WANDERLOVE Riverwalk Trail
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Sign Up For Summer Theater Camp at Museum |
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Summerstack:
This summer the DMFAH and Smokestack is teaming up to offer Theatre Explorers Camp, which is a 2-week program for children entering 1st-5th grades. Children will be introduced to the basics of theatre each day from 9am until 11am by professionals from Smokestack Theatre Company. At the end of the 2-"week camp, they will have a basic understanding of what goes into a production including: Auditioning, Acting Technique, Set Design, Costumes, and more. Theatre Explorers will have the opportunity to showcase some of these skills in an evening finale presentation for parents and family. The camp will be held June 7-18, Monday-Friday, 9am-11am at the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History.
Registration is open now through June 4 or until registrations are full. The camp is limited to 25 children. Registration includes a Summerstack T-Shirt and 2 tickets to the Theatre Explorers Camp on June 18 at 6pm. (Pending Covid Guidelines, each child may receive up to 2 additional tickets). The total cost for registration is $125 per child. Members of the DMFAH may contact Smokestack Theatre Company for a $25 discount on registration. This discount cannot be combined with other promotional pricing or discounts.
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Also sign up Early for the Youth Production!!! |
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Auditions for Youth Production |
These auditions are open to any youth entering 6th-12th grades. You will need to arrive 5 minutes before your time slot with all paperwork filled out. You will perform a 1 minute monologue, possible "cold read," and answer questions from the casting panel. Expect to be in and out in about 5 minutes. If you are new to theatre do not be intimidated. Contact us ahead of time and we will help get you prepared for your audition! The show selection will be announced soon! Show dates are July 29, 30, 31 and August 1. You must be available July 24-August 1. Rehearsals will begin June 21 and run until the show dates at least 3 evenings per week. We understand this summer is a short one due to school schedules and will allow each cast member to miss up to 3 regular rehearsals (Ie. 1 week for vacation). This does not apply to Tech week. All cast and crew should be available July 24-August 1. (exceptions may be made upon request)
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The Exhibition Expressions Opens In Martinsville on Friday May 21 |
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Expressions is back this year to showcase artwork by local and regional artists. The exhibit will be on display May 22 – July 16, 2021 at Piedmont Arts.
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Presented by Piedmont Arts and Lynwood Artists, Expressions is a judged exhibition that awards artists with prizes in seven entry categories, as well as purchase awards, the Lynwood Artists Award and Best In Show. This year’s exhibition is judged by Amanda Honore Donley, owner of Rose Window Studio in Woolwine, Virginia.
King’s Grant, Lynwood Artists and Piedmont Arts will host an Opening Reception and Awards Ceremony in honor of Expressions on Friday, May 21, 2021 from 6 – 8 pm at the museum. The awards ceremony will begin at 6:30pm. Complimentary wine and light refreshments will be served. Masks and social distancing required. Limited capacity. RSVP required by May 18, 2021 by calling 276.632.3221 or visiting PiedmontArts.org.
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