Volume II | October 10 2020
Museum Safety is a Team Effort




Keeping Our Museum Safe is a Team Effort - help us keep the museum open and accessible to ALL.









Our actions to maintain a healthy and safe environment for visitors and staff during the COVID-19 virus alerts will be:
·     Clean restrooms on a regular basis (three times a day) and keeping soap dispensers filled, as well as elevators and railings wiped down.
·     Add hand sanitizers for visitors throughout our venue and make sure they are full and accessible at all times.
·     Implementing sanitizing and disinfecting procedures for exhibitions several times a day – paying special attention to deep clean popular interactive areas.
·     We have installed CDC posters around the museum with health information.
·     Posters and staff communicate that all who enter the museum must wear a mask for their own safety as much as for the safety of other visitors and staff. All visitors, staff, interns, volunteers and visitors have to sign in every day they are at the museum at the entrance desk. This will enable contact tracing should this become necessary. . COVID-19 sanitizing stations and masks are available at the entry desk. All who enter must pay a $10 fee or be a member of the museum. We have free weekends every second weekend of every month but all are still required to wear masks. There will be no exceptions. Group tours need to remain small and must be arranged a week before visiting the museum. For group tours please reach out to info@danvillemuseum.org.
·     STARTING NOVEMBER 1, 2020 Community events, meetings and programs on specific days will require that all attending the event, meeting or program need to have their group participants sign in and log their temperatures at the front desk.
·     Interactive devices such as audio tours with interactive audio equipment will not be part of any tours. A Self Guiding Pamphlet will be available to all visitors.

For more information regarding standard museum safety practices please follow this link to the American Alliance of Museum's (AAM) website:
Art in The 500 BLOCK: The Craghead 536 Gallery Show
Beginning in November, the 536 Craghead Street Gallery will present two DMFAH fine arts exhibitions in Danville’s River District, to complement its regular programing at its Main Street facility. 
Rick Barker Properties has recently restored the Venable Building’s (c. 1899) commercial storefront at 536 Craghead Street. Before this space is made available for lease, it is offered to the museum to promote visual arts. This collaboration is consistent with the artistic rhythm of The 500 Block, a development project focusing on the restoration of eight antique commercial buildings. 
Reverend Venable, the building’s first tenant and eventual owner, was a black minister who operated a restaurant on the ground floor and resided on the second floor. The upcoming art exhibitions will bring activity to the building, not seen in decades. 
The museum’s November opening will offer large-scale photographs by David A. Douglas. This exhibition will be curated for the unique pop-up gallery space. This show will be followed by a Spring show featuring Tim Duffy photographs. Duffy’s black and white portraits of regional blues musicians are currently displayed at The Garage- Artisian Smoked Meats, also in The 500 Block.
Sign up for the Oct. 22.2020 SilkScreen Workshop at info@danvillemuseum.org
"A Stitch In Time" Workshop on Tuesday and Thursday Mornings from 10-11:30am
info@danvillemusum.org
Centering diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion
All too often in times of crisis and uncertainty, diversity, equity, accessibility, and inclusion are de-prioritized as individuals and institutions make sense of their new realities. But it is only more imperative in these difficult times when immense inequities that exist within global society and institutions are made visible, to center equity and inclusion in decision-making and actions. These times require collective action to center, protect, and lift up the voices of the most vulnerable, which mandates making decisions firmly grounded in equitable principles, taking bold stances, and creating opportunities to do individual and collective work differently than before.

To read more about DEAI museum efforts please click HERE for a book review by Jennifer Thomas, Director of the Virginia Association of Museums.
Dan River Reads: White Fragility
A Strong opinion is not the same as informed Knowledge.
Plug in w/ Community Re-Read Weekly Regional Chats to Compliment Reading Group Discussions or Solo Reading 
·      Reading group sessions will be available for the book White Fragility by Robin Diangelo, at the DMFAH on Wednesdays throughout October (starting at 5:30pm and ending at 7:30pm. Please contact info@danvillemuseum.org for a Zoom link).
The DMFAH will launch our reading group this month starting on Wednesday Evenings in October from 5:30 – 7:30pm. Please join us in person or on zoom. For those coming in person, please reserve your place before you come at info@danvillemuseum.org

The "Community Re-read Team" will offer guidance for reading on Thursdays from 6-8pm in a zoom chat hosted by Dr. Monica Motley. .https://www.danriverreads.com/regional-chats.
Readers can use the "Community Re-Read Weekly Regional Chats" as their preferred option to review the content of White Fragility or join the museum reading group on Wednesdays .

 
Event Planning at the Museum: The Sutherlin Mansion offers a great venue space for "small" special events.
This week the much sought after Michael Moore was sprinkling his design talent around the museum for a Saturday event. The Museum wants to remind its membership that the elegant architecture of this Italianate Villa offers a unique experience to all who want smaller events during COVID-19. Once the proud residence of a tobacco baron, the Sutherlin Mansion features its vast architectural history and galleries filled with Dan River regional Exhibitions. The Mansion has witnessed the rise and fall of the Southern Confederacy; it has experienced the boom and bust of Textile and Tobacco. The building itself has been a key venue in the fight for civil rights in Danville and the Nation. These regional histories make the building and the Museum a memorable site for all Danvillians. Located on Main Street, flanked by Crema and Vine on one side, and Mid-town Market on the other, the museum allows event planners easy access to fresh produce and the best wine. For more information about small gatherings in a historic setting, please contact info@danvillemusum.org.
 
The Residency Mural is Progressing Steadily
This week local mural artists Anna Timm and Felice McWilliams ( Director of MAKE DANVILLE SMILE) have worked hard on the Research Center Entrance at House 126.

The mural has a river as central theme and it also shows three smokestacks amongst its many other features. If you are interested in seeing the mural as it progresses we can let you know when the artists are on campus. They would love to talk to you about what they are doing. This large project is the perfect way to learn what it takes to create a mural and what you can do to create your own toolkit for a mural in your own neighborhood.

Find out more by writing to us at info@danvillemuseum.org

Felice McWilliams featured
Harriet Fitzgerald Arrived At the Museum Today!
A Self Portrait Once Lost Now is Safely Back At The Museum
Irina Reimann drove all the way from Vienna Virginia (a five hour drive) to safely hand into our care a self-portrait by the southern regional painter Harriet Fitzgerald. Ms. Reimann had found this painting in a thrift store and purchased it for the frame that held it. However, on close inspection, she saw that the artist had signed the work and explored the Internet for more information on the her. Reimann soon realized that her thrift store purchase was in fact more than the sum of its parts. She discerned that the Danville Museum, along with Longwood University, Randolph College, Averett and the Danville Museum, all held works in their Harriet Fitzgerald Collections. We were most grateful that Irina Reimann chose to donate this portrait to the Museum. It is the only Harriet Fitzgerald self-portrait we know of. Our curator in residence, Jennifer Zhang, is in the process of compiling an extensive retrospective exhibition that should be ready by the end of next year. We feel very lucky today to receive such an extraordinary gift, and appreciate the extraordinary efforts that accompanied it. Harriet Fitzgerald painted the self-portrait in 1965 when she was 62 years old.