On the second Friday of each month, Smith College Museum of Art opens its doors from 4 to 8 p.m. for “Free Second Friday,” when the public can visit its galleries, have a conversation with a museum educator about a work in the collection, enjoy snacks and refreshments, and even make their own art. Some 200 to 300 people usually attend, as they did last Friday, according to Martha Ebner, the museum’s communications coordinator.
The event was started about 10 years ago as an extension of Northampton’s “Arts Night Out.” People gather in the museum’s atrium at 4 p.m. for “Hands On!” — an art-making project. This month’s activity was called “Cardboard Creations” and art makers, mostly children with their parents, were invited to build a sculpture inspired by Claes Oldenburg’s “Sketch for a Soft Fan,” a work in SCMA’s collection.
“We appreciate the generosity of the museum and the abundance of supplies,” said Youme Nguyen, of Northampton, who brought her children, Song, 5, and Tao, 3. “We also appreciate the inspiration — to see what other people do. This was a particularly good one, because of the 3-dimensional aspect of it.”
Paul Kuc brought four teenagers from a Valley human services recreational program in Ware. He built a cardboard project with Alex Bozoglos that they said is a model of a collapsible microwave relay tower that can be moved to remote locations, so you can have cellphone service anywhere.
At 6 p.m., people moved to a gallery for “Open Eyes,” a guided conversation led by Gina Hall, who is an educator for the museum, where they studied Jacob Lawrence’s “Builders: The Family.”