FRAMINGHAM -- The Danforth Museum of Art will unveil one of the most significant displays of its 30-year history -- a look into its future.
After a six-week hiatus, a dramatically renovated museum will reopen this weekend for a series of events and exhibits that showcase a more accessible, modernized and possibly bolder institution.
The Danforth is hosting a Grand Reopening and Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. to spotlight major improvements in handicap accessibility, climate control and several innovative exhibits, said Executive Director Katherine French.
The free event offers a chalk drawing workshop by artist Robert "Sidewalk Sam" Guillemin, family workshops in the museum school, music by Quintessential Brass and docent tours. Guillemin will invite visitors to "Chalk It Up" in the museum parking lot by collaborating on a drawn quilt to celebrate the event.
As part of an extensive renovation program, French said the museum has installed a refurbished elevator that gives wheelchair users, people with impaired mobility and parents with strollers direct access to museum galleries from street level entrances.
"It dignifies the way handicapped people can use the museum," she said. "It was the right thing to do. Before we weren't welcoming."
A new climate control system in two first-floor galleries will help the Danforth protect its own collection while attracting a wider range of art loaned from other museums, she said. The new system keeps gallery temperatures between 68 and 72 degrees and monitors humidity which can damage paintings.
"I think for us this is really a step forward," said French. "It takes this museum to the next level."
Much of the renovation funds were raised over the last several months, including generous donations by Caroline Daniels, the Framingham Cooperative Bank Charitable Foundation, Citizens Bank Foundation and the Conover Foundation.
By using the improved elevator, visitors and staff can now pass directly from the Danforth to the second floor Museum School, enhancing the sense of connection between the institutions and their programs, French said. "It ties them both together."
Before renovations, she said the Danforth and school, which the museum operates, were "physically disconnected."
"It'll be easier for teachers and students to use the museum. We've always been a teaching institution," she said. "(The renovations) make us a stronger teaching museum. It improves our outreach. My job is to visually educate visitors by having the museum and school physically connected. It makes us a better school and a better museum."
A newly designated second-floor children's gallery will open in the near future.
French put renovation costs at "about $226,000" but said final figures weren't available. "We're still finding out," she said.
The reopening celebrations and improvements herald an exciting new exhibit, "Diagnostic Arts," featuring challenging works by six New England artists who employ modern technology to explore personal notions of illness and health.
Curated by French, the show includes works in varied mediums by Jane Hesser, Maggie Stark, Richard Yarde, Jennifer Hall, Jo Sandman and New Yorker Jeffrey Bishop. It runs from Sept. 25 through Oct. 30.
An opening reception will be held Saturday, Sept. 24 from 6 to 8 p.m.
French said works on display reveal the artists' creative response to illness and healing, often incorporating diagnostic tools used to treat medical problems.
In several striking pieces, Bishop paints over electronic scans showing the neurological activity of his father who suffered from Alzheimer's disease. Yarde, an African-American who has high blood pressure, makes watercolors images suggesting his own circulatory system. Sandman's gelatic silver prints of skeletal structures have a ghostly beauty.
French said the innovative medicine-themed exhibit was timed to coincide with the installation of an improved elevator to signal a changing museum.
"I don't think you'll see many other exhibits like this. I think it signifies one of the directions we'll be taking that reflect my interest in conceptual art and the art of ideas," she said. "If people want to know me as a curator, this (exhibit) will be a good indicator."
Another interesting exhibit, "Senses" by Mari Arvelo and James Patten, encourages visitors who are sighted and blind to consider different ways of seeing and visualization.
It pairs a series of photographs by Arvelo of deaf and blind people with duplicate images cut into wood by Patten, who is Arvelo's husband and artistic collaborator.
"It's a metaphor for the way I'd like the museum to be accessible to everyone," said French. "It's a statement of my interest in involving many different people in the community."
Natick resident David Ratner will be showing more than 20 paintings and drawings that reveal his technical skill as a draftsman and love of form and color. Born in Minneapolis in 1922, Ratner studied in Maine and Paris before teaching art at Boston University for 15 years, retiring as professor emeritus. Ratner's work will be shown through Oct. 30.
In another new show in the Swartz Gallery, Catherine Carter, who teaches art at Framingham State College, will be showing her own mixed-media works on canvas in an exhibit titled "Sky, Stem, Stream." Part of the fall season of New England Currents, a series of exhibitions by New England based artists, it runs through Oct. 23.
Since taking over as the Danforth's sixth director in January, French has been instrumental in helping the museum acquire about 50 new donated works of art, including paintings, photographs, sculpture and mixed media, from several Boston area galleries.
THE ESSENTIALS:
The Danforth Museum of Art is located at 123 Union Ave., Framingham.
Hours are Wednesday through Sunday from noon through 5 p.m.
Admission is $5 for adults, $4 for seniors and students and free for children under 12.
Admission is free to members, students and staff of Framingham State College and Mass Bay Community College, employees and families of TJX Companies and several museum consortiums.
The museum is handicapped accessible.
