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Museum of Ventura County — Santa came early to Ventura County!

by Community Contributor • December 8, 2021 • Comments Off

MVC Gallery Marketplace & Gift Shops

Where you get to bring the Museum home!

Online, at the Museum of Ventura County, and the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula

10% off for Museum Members!

We are so excited to present our updated online MVC Gallery Marketplace collection! Browse and purchase artworks by local artists Charlene Spiller, Ed Terpening, Gail Faulkner, Jacqueline Woods, Nash Rightmer, and Scott Gordon. The MVC Gallery Marketplace was created to help regional artists sell their works to collectors. The Museum has selected notable artists working in many media, who represent some of the finest work in our county.

Our beautiful gift shops at both Museums are also newly stocked! Continue your holiday shopping with one of kind artisanal crafts for your home, soaps, skincare, and toys from local artists at the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula. Don’t miss out on gorgeous artwork, decor, apparel, and books by Margaret Garcia at the Museum of Ventura County before it’s too late!

Story Time at the Museum:

Family

Saturday, December 11 @

11:30 am – 1:00 pm

at the Museum of Ventura County

The Museum of Ventura County has been partnering with the county library to bring in-person Story Time on the 2nd Saturday of each month at 11:30am, this will be the last one of the year! On the 11th of December, in time for Christmas, we’ll feature a story about Family. Join us for stories, then play & learn in the Children’s Garden, a fabulous and FREE outing for ALL!

Illustrated by Donna Clair in “Carlos, Light the Farolito” by Jean Ciavonne

Las Posadas

Friday, December 17 @

6:00 pm to 8:00 pm

at the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula

Las Posadas (“The Inns” in English) is a Latinx traditional holiday that commemorates the biblical journey of Mary and Joseph from Nazareth to Bethlehem in search of lodging and a safe refuge for Mary to give birth to Jesus.

This year we will begin with a candlelight procession in memory of those we have lost during the pandemic and have experienced undue hardships. This event is free to the public and is in partnership with De Colores Multicultural Folk Arts.

To learn more about the procession route and our list of volunteering speakers and performers click here.

Arte Para la Gente:

The Collected Works of Margaret Garcia

Now – Spring 2022

at the Museum of Ventura County

Arte Para la Gente explores artist Margaret Garcia’s vast body of work that captures and encapsulates culture, family, and urban life. Over the past four decades, Margaret Garcia has been a leader in the L.A. Chicano Art Movement, championing women, community, and those individuals who are marginalized by society. Her most recent works, many shown here for the first time, were painted in Ventura County.

Sponsored by

Lazer Media

KXLM 102.9 • KLJR 96.7 • KOXR 102.1

and The Port of Hueneme

Women’s Qualities

Now – January 7, 2022

Downtown Ventura

The seven installations that make up Women’s Qualities by New York-based artist Ghada Amer can be viewed throughout historic Downtown Ventura. Women’s Qualities was originally commissioned for Desert X 2021 by Artistic Director Neville Wakefield and Co-curator César García-Alvarez and was installed at Sunnylands Center & Gardens in Rancho Mirage in the Coachella Valley. Click here to find all seven throughout downtown Ventura.

Click here to view them all on Instagram.

The installation is a collaboration between the Museum of Ventura County, the City of Ventura, the Downtown Ventura Partners, and the Ventura Botanical Gardens.

Thank you to all who contributed to the Museum of Ventura County’s Giving Tuesday Campaign. Our goal was to raise $10,000 to help ensure free admission so that our county’s collections, history, and culture will be shared with the entire community. Together we didn’t just meet our goal, we exceeded it, with $14,574 raised!

This means that both sites of the Museum will be free for all of 2022.

We truly could not have done it without you. A gift to the Museum is a gift to the community. Thank you for giving to your community this holiday season.

Bootleggers, Rumrunners, and Blind-Piggers:

Prohibition in Ventura County

by Library Volunteer Andy Ludlum

It was the opening day of duck season in October 1925. Ventura County and the rest of the nation had been legally dry for years. The last thing the hunters expected to bag along the shore east of Hueneme was dozens of 50-gallon barrels of pure alcohol.

Smugglers towing a raft loaded with the barrels were apparently spooked by the hunters’ gunfire and abandoned their cargo.

Ventura County Sheriff Robert Clark only managed to recover half the barrels that washed ashore that day, as Ventura County residents clamored for their own free alcohol. It was the largest haul of contraband on the Pacific Coast, 65 barrels estimated to be worth almost $68,000 – more than $1 million today.

Digital Jigsaw Puzzles

America’s Revolution!

George Stuart Historical Figures®

Take a moment or two to relax with new online jigsaw puzzles with photography by Peter D’aprix of the stunning figures in George Stuart’s currently exhibit up at the Museum of Ventura County.

Brought to you in part by the

generous support of

Ellen Brokaw and

Al Lowe Construction

In the Moment

An interview with Margaret Garcia and The Barbara Barnard Smith Executive Director Elena Brokaw

Online

This intimate interview and portraiture session took place in Margaret Garcia’s own studio on October 13, 2021. Delve deeper into the colorful world of Margaret Garcia as she paints

The Barbara Barnard Smith Executive Elena Brokaw.

The Carnegie Library of Oxnard, Part 2:

Post-War Growth and Outreach Programs

In this Journal Flashback we continue with the second part of Madeline Miedema’s article on the Oxnard Public Library, published in the Ventura County Historical Society Quarterly, Volume 37, No.2 (Winter 1992). Here Miedema details the continued commitment to children’s services and the challenges faced by the library following World War II. While the immediate post-war years saw a boom, the 1970s brought a dearth in funding. Despite that, the librarians continued to work on providing services to Oxnard’s diverse communities.

Out and Back

Ventura County

Backcountry Adventures

In 2018 our library staff discovered 20 reels of 16mm film showing backwoods scenes from 1920s Ventura County. The film was too fragile to project, but with a grant from the Schwemm Family Foundation, the film was conserved and digitized. It is a one-of-a-kind glimpse

into the backcountry experience

from 100 years ago.

Funding for this project provided by The Schwemm Family Foundation

The Museum of Ventura County and the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula are open Thursday—Sunday from 11am to 5pm.

Admission to both Museums is now FREE.

Take a look at our current exhibits below!

Crossing Borders

at the Museum of Ventura County

Crossing Borders features select works from the Museum collection along with works by artists in the community who have immigrated to the US, sometimes as refugees in search of a safe haven, bringing their talent and creative

ideas with them.

America’s Revolution

George Stuart Historical Figures®

at the Museum of Ventura County

Through his intricately created Historical Figures, George Stuart captures the colorful personalities involved in America’s struggle for independence.

Funding provided by the

Fred W. Smith Gallery Fund

Tomols to Trains:

County Transportation

through the 1900s

at the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula

Tomols to Trains explores how transportation played a role in Ventura County history. Visit the communities that struggled with the changes brought about by new modes of transportation.

See how towns and cities changed, how suburbs grew and how our farms and other industries became part of regional, national, and international economies.

Made possible by the

Heritage Fund at VCCF

Farm to Market

at the Agriculture Museum in Santa Paula

An interactive exhibit promoting healthy lifestyles through role-play, the Ag Market is an immersive environment where children and families identify healthy food choices in a market-like atmosphere.

Special thanks to

Santa Paula’s Mayor Carlos Juarez for volunteering his time and

talent in building our

fun-filled indoor market.