Museum ready for New Year with new activities

GREENCASTLE -- As 2011 begins, the Putnam County Museum has a number of events prepared for the first quarter of the upcoming year.

On Jan. 22 the museum will be having a pair of performances by a group of Greencastle High School theater students.

"This will be a community project and if anyone is interested in being involved we would love to have them involved," museum executive director Tanis Monday said. "It's theater that sparks conversations about issues within the community."

As an example of what the theater project would likely involve, Monday referenced a previous performance.

"They present a skit, which really poses a question or problem in our community," Monday said. "The one that stick out in my mind is one they did about drugs, drug usage and peer pressure. They presented the skit and then they open it up to an audience member who'd like to step into the skit and replace one of the actors and do something different to try and change the outcome."

After the skit, the group opens it up to audience discussion.

"The group discussion led us not just to drug usage, that's not really something we can really solve, but other things that young people can do here in Greencastle. We talked about the fact that we don't necessarily have man youth hangout groups," Monday said. "It sparked some really good conversations."

"I'm looking forward to this January presentation and hoping that it will kick off a series and we can really get some people in our community involved."

The Jan. 22 performances will be at 10 a.m. and 5 p.m.

In February an Evening at the Elms will be held at the home of DePauw President Brian Casey.

"There will be a fundraising event there and we are focusing on celebrating photography and art in our community," Monday said.

The Elms event will be Feb. 26, and there will also be the fourth annual Student Art Show in mid to late February.

In early to mid March, the museum will host the results of the "Through the Lens" project.

"We have eight people who have applied for the Through the Lens project, which is being facilitated by Karen Murphy, our assistant director," Monday said. "They took eight weeks and documented life in Putnam County for them through a photographic lens."

"As a part of that project we had disposable cameras placed around Greencastle during ArtsFest week, and there were other small portions," she said.

Monday said that she hoped the photography exhibit would draw in some community involvement.

"The exhibit itself will include a Polaroid camera so people can view the exhibit and then take a picture of themselves or their group and add it to the wall there, so people can become a part of the exhibit once they've viewed it," Monday said.

The museum will also be having a "Diamond in the Rough" auction in April, possibly April 11.

"It will be a silent auction here at the museum and prior to that there will be an online auction portion as well," Monday said. "That will be one of the biggest fundraisers that we have going on this year."

Monday explained that the title refers to the secondhand nature of the items.

"Diamond in the Rough kind of means things that you have in your home that you don't need or want anymore, so you're passing them on, but they're still diamonds," Monday said. "They're still treasures."

"There will be some larger items, some furniture, some really nice art pieces and some china sets," she said.

Monday recently announced that the "Indiana's Native Peoples: The Earliest Inhabitants" exhibit has been extended until May of 2011.