Let’s Talk: Confronting What Divides Us Community Open House

Celebrate the opening weekend of our newest exhibition, Let’s Talk: Confronting What Divides Us, at our Community Open House – an inspiring day for artists, families, educators, and curious minds of all ages. Engage your creativity through art-making activities led by artists featured in our exhibitions or at our Creation Station with design-your-own buttons and a themed photo booth. Participate in thoughtful workshops with community partners and discover the power of conversation. With pay-what-you-wish admission and programs for all ages and interests, it’s the perfect chance to create, connect, and celebrate the power of community.

SCHEDULE OF EVENTS

Creation Station  |  10 am – 5 pm

Use your artistic inspiration and take home your own piece of the Museum. Make a statement and design your own custom button inspired by our museum exhibitions or your own unique vision. Strike a pose and capture the memories with friends and family in our themed photo booth.

Impressions (imˈpreSHəns) of a Book: Print Making with Paul Travis Phillips  |  10:30 am – 12:30 pm

Books hold power. They carry ideas that have changed minds, sparked movements, and—at times—been feared, banned, or erased. In this hands-on workshop, Word Powered exhibition artist Paul Travis Phillips invites you to explore that history in a surprising way: by using the pages of books to make your own mark. Traditionally, books are tools used to transmit ideas into the minds of others. In this workshop, you’ll reimagine your relationship to that tool—not as something to be read, but as something to be handled, altered, and transformed. You’ll select a book that speaks to you, then use its physical pages to create an original work of art. What does it mean to take a banned book and use it to create something new? To repurpose silenced pages into an expressive gesture?

Visitors of all ages and skill levels are welcome to drop in and create between 10:30 am – 12:30 pm. All materials provided.

Discovering Our Voice with Committee of Seventy  |  10:30 am, 11:30 am, 12:30 pm

This family-friendly workshop will invite young people and their parents/guardians to think about how they can be engaged members in a community. Participants will be encouraged to discover their voice, but also help others discover theirs.

Visitors of all ages and skill levels are welcome to attend any of the sessions, beginning at 10:30 am, 11:30 am, or 12:30 pm. All materials provided.

Word Art: Making Text Visual with Becky Brown  |  1 pm – 3 pm

How do artists use words or phrases to capture our eye and attention? Work with Word Powered exhibition artist Becky Brown to create your own text-based artwork. Combine words that matter to you with collage elements to create your own take-home piece. We will explore “seeing” vs. “reading,” questions of legibility, and how connections between words and images have evolved in 2025, when social media has them more entangled than ever.

Visitors of all ages and skill levels are welcome to drop in and create between 1 pm – 3 pm. All materials provided.

Re-CASTing the “Other Side” in a Better Light with James Coan from More Like US  |  2 pm – 4 pm

A Workshop for Artists and Art Enthusiasts to Explore the CAST (Complex, Admirable, Similar, Together) Framework

People often have biased, stereotypical, and overly negative views of other groups in society. Those in the arts can help bridge this gap by portraying those across the political spectrum in a more empathetic light. To help empower those in the arts to achieve these goals, the non-profit More Like US will provide an overview of its CAST (Complex, Admirable, Similar, Together) framework and provide space to start workshopping ideas. While many of the examples presented will focus on differences across the political spectrum, which is the primary area of research for More Like US, the CAST framework can be applied to misperceptions across any divide.

Visitors of all ages and skill levels are welcome to attend, beginning at 2 pm. All materials provided.

SUPPORT PROVIDED BY

Register