Undaunted by the pandemic Explore Butte County and a dozen local museums are hosting the second annual Butte County Museum Weekend on Saturday and Sunday.
While last year’s free museum weekend event was live and offered shuttles to various museums in Oroville and Chico, this year’s free event includes virtual tours and live streaming events.
The Museum Weekend landing page at www.explorebuttecounty.com/museum-weekend allows people to view a sampling of the offerings available from a dozen museums, all in one place.
“Some of the museums already have virtual tours set up and we just want to shed light on these great resources and the tours that are available. Some of the museums are premiering new exhibits or live virtual shows or demonstrations for people that weekend,” said Carolyn Denero, Explore Butte County executive director.
On Saturday at 10 a.m., the Museum of Northern California Art will host a virtual tour of “Dream State,” a juried exhibition of 24 artists that started with a statement “In dreams, anything is possible.” Additionally, guests to this event will also be treated to a virtual tour of the newest addition to monca’s permanent collection of artwork, the Maria Alquilar Collection, a collection of “mystical and dream-like detailed images.”
The Gateway Science Museum will premier of a virtual tour of the museum’s science demos, a spring native plants garden tour, and chat with Gateway’s Curiosity Guides starting at 12:30 p.m. Saturday. A special feature of this virtual event includes an expert paleontologist preparing some recent finds including a Miocene-era whale and an ichthyosaur.
“People joining in will get to chat with a real ‘fossil finder,’” said Denero.
Also on Saturday, the Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology is hosting a virtual live crafting event created to celebrate and share family recipes and food traditions. Through “Recipes Tell Our Stories,” led by artist Kim Cobb, participants will engage in a live art process to create individual recipes and make a community cookbook.
“Recipes tell stories and transcend generations so this is going to be a really cool activity,” said Denero.
The Museum of Northern California Art invites folks to join in on a live Facebook event at https://www.facebook.com/MuseumofNorthernCaliforniaArt that teaches how to finger crochet free-form sculpture from fabric around the house.
The “Crochet Jam!” starts live at 12:30 p.m. Sunday. Tip: If you want to do a bit of advanced preparation monca suggests watching “Crochet Jam at the Hearst Museum” feature at https://youtu.be/a02-oN9HkcA so you’ll be ready to get your jam on.
Local museums participating in the 2021 Butte County Museum Weekend include:
Chico Art Center, Gateway Science Museum, Pioneer History Museum, Bolt’s Antique Tool Museum, Chinese Temple and Museum Complex, C.F. Lott Home in Sank Park, Museum of Northern California Art, Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology, Janet Turner Print Museum, Gridley Museum, Feather River Nature Center and Native Plant Park and the Feather River Fish Hatchery.
“We’re thrilled to identify new and exciting ways to connect with the community during a ‘reimagined’ Butte County Museum Weekend,” said Denero. “We hope the virtual activations provided by participating museums serve to remind the community about the wealth of enriching experiences our regional museums will have to offer when things do reopen and that they remember to go visit these great art, science and historical resources.”
