Remember a year ago when we were all cheering on the start of the roaring ‘20s? It was going to be a spectacular year and ring in a spectacular decade. Well, it didn’t work out that way. Instead, it became a year full of disease, pain, and reckoning with unabashed connectivity yet with slivers of joy nonetheless.
So, let’s try again and take what we’ve learned. On the cusp of a new year, we here at the MAH can’t wait to keep connecting with our Santa Cruz County community again and always. Here's a look at what we have coming up this year...
As soon as we are able to swing open our doors we are excited to open the exhibition, In These Uncertain Times. The Solari Gallery has yearned for more art to fill its walls and this new, community-sourced exhibition offers us a chance to appreciate the ways art can help us process and heal from the global pandemic. Sixty local artists will be showcased for us to see and connect to the ways they’ve worked/created/moved through this moment.
We’ll show you what they’ve been up to with a virtual member sneak peek on January 15th with our Exhibitions & Projects Manager, Everett Ó Cillín. Stay tuned for the reservation link, but get ready today by signing up to become a MAH Member.
Then on January 23rd, we’ll kick off our new monthly virtual Family Day series with our Learning & Engagement Manager, Jamie Keil. We’ll continue to heal together with art in an at-home craft event perfect for all ages. You can also look forward to more upcoming Family Days on February 13th and March 13th.
And when you’re out and about, swing by the MAH and grab a free creativity kit. We’re changing the theme each month to help you stay inspired and crafty.
In honor of Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, MAH’s Outreach Coordinator Helen Aldana is organizing a virtual justice journal. Please share your dreams by adding a page to this community compilation that will be displayed the week of March 1st as a close to Black History Month.
Then, Oscar Paz, the MAH’s Education Coordinator is ready to take you on some virtual tours of our exhibitions. Educators, we’re here for you – bring your class or home school network together online to connect with art and history digitally. We’ll also keep adding to our YouTube channel with more educational videos focused on arts and crafts, as well as fun facts about Santa Cruz County history.
If podcasts are your thing, we’ve got a great lineup of episodes related to In These Uncertain Times, produced by Wyatt Young, the MAH’s Archives & Library Coordinator. You can follow the new releases on Soundcloud or here on our website.
Or if books are more your style, check out our publications here to order a copy (or two) and hunker down with history this winter. And stay tuned as we will soon launch a new online exhibition, Do You Know My Name? It’s based on one of the MAH history journals by the same name. The exhibition is curated by Morgan Gates, the Humanities Institute fellow from UCSC.
We’re honored to have you join us as we enter 2021, no doubt still burdened with the weight of last year. And yet together we can make the load more manageable if we look out for each other and stay connected.
“Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next,” writes Arundhati Roy, in The pandemic is a portal.
Let’s walk through it together, lifting each other up, and coaxing each other to tell those stories we still need to share.