Museums generally are far from being stodgy places, dull and uninspired, top-heavy with facts. They are more likely to be enlightening and edifying. Their primary mission is to provide the public a place to study and reflect on their contents: objects of artistic, cultural or scientific significance.
That’s always been true at the Vacaville Museum, a center for Solano County history, where the coming summer months promise not only educational experiences but also music and food and “public programs to foster community and be your cornerstone to gather and connect,” Sarah Olsen-Menon, the museum’s executive director, said in a press statement. Perhaps most significant is a new exhibit, “Sew-lano Quilts: A Pattern of Change,” which opens Saturday and continues to Sept. 21 at the 213 Buck Ave.
museum. Featuring both historic quilts as well as quilts and fiber arts from communities throughout Solano County, the exhibit, she said, explores “the shift of fiber arts from merely functional to repositories of memory capable of storytelling and connecting different cultures and generations of people.” Like the world-famous quilts of Gee’s Bend, Alabama, quilts in the latest museum exhibit also can be freighted with meaning, beauty and family history, since the quilting tradition after all, is rooted in beliefs of self-reliance and community.
The new exhibit announcement comes as the museum extends its gallery hours: 1 to 4:30 p.m. Thursdays and Fridays, 10 a.
m. to 4:3.