The Timmins Museum quietly re-opened on Monday after being closed for renovations and members of the public are welcome to have a peek at the changes that have been made.
"Right now we have our gift shop opened and we are preparing for two art exhibition that will be opening on Friday and Saturday," said Meagan Sinclair, the Program Co-ordinator for the Timmins Museum.
Both the office space and the gallery spaces are significantly larger to accommodated more displays and exhibits in both the Black Room for permanent exhibit; and the old Red Gallery, which has been turned into a grey room with a carpet-like finish that allows for hanging of art work without damaging the finish.
"Because this the temporary exhibition hall with exhibits changing frequently we added the carpet-like wall covering because it self heals and doesn't leave cracks and tears that have to been repaired between shows," explained Sinclair.
Despite the change in wall colour from bright red to grey, Sinclair said the staff still considers it to be the Red Gallery
One of the major changes as a result of the renovations is the creation of more office space, that will allow the staff of Tourism and Communications Timmins, including director, Guy Lamarche to be housed in the Timmins Museum.
The museum will come to life very quickly first on Friday night with the opening of an exhibition "Silence Expanse: A Cross Canada Exploration".
The next day on Saturday the museum will feature the Northern Ontario Art Association's Annual Juried Exhibition. The juried Exhibition has been a long running event in North Eastern Ontario with entries from Timmins, Sault Ste. Marie, Sudbury, North Bay, Kirkland Lake, Cobalt, Temiskaming Shores and places in between.
Following the NOAA exhibition will be an exhibit on the Bank of Canada art featured on the back of Canadian's banknotes.
"We are preparing for a grand opening and will make an announcement as soon as we finalize the date," said Sinclair.
"In the meantime come out and enjoy our two art exhibitions and have a look at the newly renovated museum," she added.
The Thursday night adult program which was a big success the last couple of the years will return.
For more information on the museum and future events visit the website
"I putting together the Thursday night program and will release dates fro this year's activities soon," said Sinclair.
Another new feature to the museum is the addition of the artist studio which will be available to local artists.
"In addition to this room being an artist studio with art classes and the related activities, we are still trying work out a program for the studio but it will have space for a 'digital creator's studio' which is an Ontario-wide program that we have been running this passed summer at our pop up museum shop on Third Avenue," said Sinclair.,
"You have to be a youth 14 to 19 years of age, and it is all about creating digital art such as digital photographs, videos, digital animation," said Sinclair.
"It will be very informal setting with couches and young people are welcomed to hang out and use the computers and software to be creative and design new digital art," she added.
The museum will exhibit some of the Timmins-produced digital art.
