Volume II | February 7 2021
WANDERLOVE: A Stitch in Time
Knitters Unite! And Register for WANDERLOVE – A free community program!

The Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History is teaming up with the Danville Pittsylvania County Chamber of Commerce, Danville Parks and Rec, the River District Association, the Dan River Basin Association as well as many other civic organizations, on one of the largest and most ambitious community knit projects in the region. 
This fiber, knitting & crocheting collaboration by the Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, recognizes the building of community found within the age-old practice of gathering to assemble fabric and knitted pieces in small groups. This interactive winter community project, produced from January through June, celebrates and reflects people’s many different backgrounds and experiences. Participants are invited to collaborate in the making of a "Yarn Bombing" installation along the Danville Riverwalk. So don't delay, sign up as a Knitter to be part of WANDERLOVE: A Stitch in Time, and to receive a weekly update on the program through the DMFAH Newsletter.
 
You can also write to us at info@danvillemuseum.org if you have questions or have trouble signing up for this collective effort to show the strength of our city, making every stitch count.
 
Notes from Collections
The Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History, through core standard policy and a more vigorous collection maintenance program, will be able to reach several crucial goals. The Danville Museum of Fine Arts and History faces the challenge of pivoting as a small, but important, house museum to a small, but effective, community city museum. In order to make this turn effectively, the DMFAH will need state and federal guidance. We feel that the museum, while famous for the very difficult Civil War and Civil Rights histories it holds, as well as the multiple Industry Histories (Tobacco, Textile and Slavery) that show both industrial construction and deconstruction, is in essence a site where all can gather to find original source materials and see relevant exhibitions.
The DMFAH is partnering with Virginia Association of Museums (VAM) on a Museums on Main Street Smithsonian Exhibition: Crossroads, in Chatham Virginia (which falls under our jurisdiction for stewardship in Pittsylvania County). https://museumonmainstreet.org/content/crossroads

Crossroads will enable the DMFAH to follow suit and put our own collections to good use, while providing access to scholars and academics as well as students and teachers. We hope to nurture a renewed sense of partnering with other museums on traveling exhibitions and we hope to better manage our increased volume of artifacts with a sound collections maintenance program, while we pursue full AAM museum accreditation.
Thanking the Duke TRHT Group
On February 6, 2021, the Duke Truth, Racial Healing and Transformation team under the guidance of Dr. Darla Deardorff led a Story Circle outlining community engagement structures that the Museum can apply as we move forward to demonstrate equitable representation in all of our collections and community outreach. The UNESCO Story Circle prompts – given to all who signed up for the program on Saturday – acted as supportive scaffolding for meaningful conversations. Thank you to all who participated in the program. Invitations went out in last week’s letter to the DMFAH board, the membership and to community partners and leaders. Please feel free to reach out to elsabe@danvillemuseum.org if you would be interested in actively furthering this community outreach and helping the museum establish small (Covid19 –distanced) Story Circles. To find out more about Story circles please press HERE
Tackling New Museum Education Programs One Week at a Time!!!
The Museum would like to extend a warm welcome to education consultant Karan Johnson.
Each quarter, before the pandemic hit our community, Karan Johnson presented 45 minute programs to the residents at Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center and Roman Eagle Rehabilitation and Healthcare Center. She used museum collections resources to engage with the community in a meaningful way. However, during the 2020 pandemic year, the museum has been unable to enter healthcare centers and is working with Karan Johnson to help launch new initiatives set forth by the Carter G. Woodson Commission for new educational SOL reform. As the museum education consultant, Karan Johnson will systematically update all our existing traveling trunk exhibitions in preparation for the fall of 2021. She will also be working with Daniel Shogan, our historian-in-residence and Aidan Thomas, a 300-hour museum Intern, to confirm script outlines for the new educational units. We will be working on K-12 units that would be accessible to teachers and public school principles.
Thank you to Karan Johnson for her help toward collection education maintenance and revisions. To find out more about the programming that Karan has done in Danville City Schools for the museum, please visit:

Discover Holbrook-Ross
Star Tribune story on Holbrook-Ross Historic District  
A front page, above-the-fold story about the Holbrook-Ross Historic District in Danville is featured in this week's Chatham Star-Tribune. Holbrook-Ross (across Main from the Museum) was the neighborhood created by professional African Americans in the 1880s, up through the years of the Civil Rights Movement. At the conclusion of the article, there is notice of the walking tour of the Holbrook-Ross offered to the public, and FREE to DHS members and Museum members. Before or after your tour, visit the Museum to view the new Civil Rights exhibit: " The Movement: Danville's Civil Rights Movement." 
Celebrating All of the Virginia Museums
This Year the VAM Annual Conference issues an invitation
The silver lining of VAM's virtual conference is that all of our regions will be celebrated, and all of our museums, rather than be stationed in a single location. This year, their week-long conference will celebrate our five regions across the commonwealth, featuring one each day. In addition to a special coffee conversation for folks in that region, we also want to feature special museum "tours" as well. Before we submit our DMFAH video, please let us know if there is anything you would like to add.