The Jule Collins Smith Museum of Fine Art celebrated its seventh birthday Oct. 3 with tents and tables filled with activities, stands of free food and perfect 80-degree, sunny weather.
Guests enjoyed free entertainment provided by the museum, the city of Auburn and local pastry suppliers.
The University has been collecting art since 1948, but did not have a building to showcase or hold the works, so the collection was housed temporarily in Montgomery, Henley said.
Albert Smith, 1947 graduate, donated $3 million to build the museum in honor of he and his wife Jule's 50th anniversary in the 1990s.
It opened in 2003, started collecting art and has been growing ever since.
It now stands as a part of the community's cultural asset, a cultural amenity to Auburn, Henley said.
The theme of the celebration was "As Above, So Below," an exhibition currently on display at the museum.
The exhibition "As Above, So Below," works by Suzanne Scherer and Pavel Ouporov, manifests the connection humans have between nature or, more generally, among all things.
"They do these really wonderful egg tempera paintings that have this focus on the duality of things spiritual and corporal, like the heavens and Earth, so to speak," said Andrew Henley, education curator K-12 of the Jule Collins Smith Museum. "So with that, we've decided to build some activities for kids to sort of play around with."
Scherer and Ouporov used text in a way of using ambigrams, which are stylized letters that can be seen from left to right or vice versa.
This allows students to start thinking about duality in text.
Activities at the party included making trees out of pipe cleaners, metal tooling, pumpkin painting, costuming, painting with water colors and simply drawing with colored pencils.
All the arts and crafts were related to Scherer's and Ouporov's techniques and elements in their paintings, which were viewable inside the museum.
Art history students volunteered at the party, helping out with the children.
"I think it's awesome," said Lindsey Rodgers, journalism major and art history minor.
As one of the museum's major events of the year, it didn't stop there.
Popcorn and sweets donated by Kroger, Ursula's Catering and Gigi's Cupcakes were available free for guests.
Those who were willing to spend a couple dollars treated themselves to hot dogs, fried pickles and other traditional backyard foods.
"It's a family day celebration of the museum's opening, a community event where families are welcome," said Colleen Bourdeau, marketing and events manager.
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