It’s been a long – and quiet – twelve weeks.
For everyone, including for the Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum.
Although the Museum staff continued to work remotely since mid-March and more recently back in the office – appropriately socially distanced, of course – and despite the extensive, rich content available on our website and via social media, a big something has been missing.
Visitors.
Art museums come to life when visitors are engaging with artworks on view and with one another. The chatter, laughter, questions, and experience-sharing are important parts of the chemistry that propels the Woodson Art Museum to meet – and exceed – its mission: to enhance lives through art.
During the initial wave of the Covid-19 pandemic, the Museum did its part to help flatten the curve and keep our staff and families safe and well. These goals, along with keeping visitors safe, remain paramount.
With safety measures in place, it is now appropriate to re-open the gallery doors and sculpture garden gates and to cautiously welcome back the community.
You’ll note a number of precautions and changes:
- Museum staff are wearing masks; we encourage visitors to do so, too.
- Staff members will be serving as main entrance “greeters,” available to answer questions.
- Hand sanitizer will be offered upon arrival and departure.
- Cleaning and disinfecting high-touch areas and items, including railings and doorknobs, will be continuous throughout each day.
- The Museum’s bathrooms feature motion-activated faucets and flushing toilets.
- Art Park will engage in a different, visual-only way.
- The summer exhibition, Many Visions, Many Versions: Art from Indigenous Communities in India, encompasses more galleries than previously used for special exhibitions, thereby making it even easier for visitors to social distance.
We invite one and all to again experience the power of art to lift spirits and touch hearts and souls.
While it’s impossible to know what the days ahead will bring, at this time, the Woodson Art Museum staff and I look forward to once again serving the community and all visitors.
