After a month of “winter” cleaning and freshening up, the Bennington Museum is scheduled to reopen its doors to the public on Saturday, February 2 at 10:00 a.m. In celebration, admission is waived all day. It is a wonderful opportunity to enjoy the special exhibits, the permanent collection, and all that the museum has to offer - Free of Charge. The museum will resume its regularly scheduled hours of 10:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. daily, except Wednesdays. Beginning in 2008, the museum will be open every day in September and October.

On February 2, the museum will host the opening of the annual Student Art Show, which highlights the talent and creativity of the students in our local and regional elementary, middle, and high schools. The show will feature art ranging from whimsical projects by the youngest students to the more advanced work of the older students. This exhibit will be on display in the museum’s changing exhibits gallery until March 2. The schools participating this year are Bennington Elementary, The Bennington School, Cambridge Central School, Grace Christian School, Hiland Hall School, Molly Stark Elementary, Monument Elementary, MAUHS, MAUMS, North Bennington Graded School, Pownal Elementary, Shaftsbury Elementary, Southshire Community School, and Williamstown Elementary.

Opening also on February 2, is the latest installment of the Local Artist Program, an exhibit of Lauren Silver’s abstract ceramic sculptures that evoke organic forms. Silver’s art resembles fungi, pine cones, or sea creatures encrusted with a patina of age. Independent entities, they remind us of the natural world while retaining their autonomy as unique works of art. The Lauren Silver exhibit will be on view until March 15.

In celebration of Bennington College’s 75 years of innovative arts education, the Bennington Museum will feature two exhibitions that showcase the work of three of the college’s most successful and influential early art professors. The first of these exhibits will present the work of Paul Feeley, a prominent figure in Bennington College’s cadre of color field artists who dominated the American art scene during the 1960s. Feeley will be represented by a selection of major oil paintings, works on paper, and sculpture, which are illustrative of the highly refined sense of color and form that distinguished his mature work. Paul Feeley: Bennington College, 75 Years of Art Education will be on display from February 2 to March 25.