Hub Staff

The After Hours Museum Mixer presented by Bruce Telecom took place Friday evening on October, 2 at the Bruce County Museum & Cultural Centre in Southampton.

The theme of this year's adults-only event was arts and crafts. Museum Program Coordinator, Nancy White said that the After Hours Museum Mixer was an idea she got from the Toronto area and that the Royal Ontario Museum hosts a similar type of event. “We thought why can't we do that here? We wanted to have an event that was really unique to the area and especially for a museum,” she said.

“This is the one event of the year where we allow people to come through with their food and their drink to look at the exhibits,” White explained. “People love it because it's free flowing and there's always hands-on activities ... they can feel like kids again almost, which is the fun part of it. It's just a whole evening of relaxing, good food and good music.”

The event saw activities on all three levels of the museum which included music, a photo booth, beer tasting, food and a cash bar. Southampton Art Gallery artists offered hands-on demonstrations at various locations around the museum including enameling, playing with clay, print making and painting.

Southampton Art Gallery Director, April Patry said that the museum approached them at the infancy stages of planning of this year's Museum Mixer, and she arranged several Southampton Art Gallery artists to demonstrate and workshop their art form. Patry commended the artists for volunteering their time for the event.

She also praised artist Susan Seitz who created a community art piece during the evening and encouraged people there to help and put their mark on the acrylic painting. Seitz then donated the artwork, which was auctioned later in the evening by Pat O'Connor. The winning bid of $525 going to Mary Lou Hills.

Patry explained that the money raised from the auction was being split between the museum and the Art School's Al Downs Fostering the Arts Youth Bursary, a bursary for children's classes in the summertime.