Bones, bugs and science ‘for every age’
Bruce Museum to reopen in March, as construction continues on major expansion
GREENWICH — The Bruce Museum temporarily closed its doors to the public Jan. 12 as part of a major expansion, but there’s still been plenty of work being done inside and outside its walls this winter.
Outside, workers have been laying the foundation for a new wing that will yield a large new event space, galleries, science facilities and other amenities for visitors. Inside, a team of designers, illustrators, scientists
and technicians have been working to create new exhibits, dinosaur models and displays to delight and educate museum-goers of all ages.
The museum is set to re-open in early March, resuming two shows featuring works by a New Yorker magazine cartoonist with a Greenwich connection, and an abstract painter with a bold color palette. The date of re-opening has not been scheduled yet.
On a recent visit to the museum, workers were using earth movers, concrete mixers and jackhammers to lay the foundations for a three-story, 43,000square-foot addition funded by a $60 million outlay. The deep layer of rock that undergirds the museum, which opened to the public in 1912, is slowly being hacked away so steel and concrete can rise above it.
Inside the museum, staff members were working on creating a new science exhibit set to open this fall.
“It’s all being renovated and re-purposed,” said Daniel Ksepka, the Bruce’s curator of science.
The COVID-19 pandemic has created some challenges for the interior work, making some materials harder to acquire, and preventing orders from abroad.
“It has impacted us a little bit, in terms of the supply chain. It has definitely impacted plexiglass, and steel, a little, ” said Anne von Stuelpnagel, director of exhibitions. “There was one order we wanted from Germany — totally impossible.”
The science exhibit opening this fall will look at the theme of cycles in the natural world, Ksepka said, and ways they can be disrupted. The aim of the exhibits, running through a number of gallery spaces, will take a visitor from the the vastest scale imaginable — the formation of the Earth and its continents — to the tiny insects that populate a suburban backyard.
“We start with Pangea (the Earth’s first supercontinent) breaking apart, and end with a caterpillar turning into a butterfly,” Ksepka said.
The aim, Ksepka said, is to make the earth science exhibits as interactive and engaging, especially to young people.
“We have as many ‘touchable’ things as possible, lots of interactive screens, and videos,” said Ksepka, an expert in early birdlife and penguins. “A lot of things for the little guys. When there’s something to touch — a button, a hand crank, a specimen — it really makes a connection, and it’s an attraction for what I call the Apple Jacks and Cheerios demographic. And it’s not just for little kids, it’s for everyone. You can be 5 or 105 and enjoy dinosaurs and science. It’s for every age.”
The earth science and dinosaur exhibits are slowly taking shape. A Postosuchus skeleton model was recently erected by the museum staff — Ksepka had particular trouble putting together the dinosaur’s ankle bones, a three-hour job that required some teleconferencing with the manufacturer. “Some assembly required,” he joked.
The main attraction for dinosaur lovers is currently being fabricated by experts at the Natural History Museum in New York City. A model of a 13-foot-long Dilophosaurus, a fast-moving meat-eater with a plumed neck crest, will look suitably terrifying when it is put on display at the Bruce.
A 500-gallon water tank will showcase the various kinds of sea life to be found in the coastal waters off Connecticut, and a major collection of fish fossils excavated across the state has been donated by Nicholas G. McDonald, a retired geology teacher and naturalist.
A woodland diorama is also taking shape under the watchful eye of von Stuelpnagel, directing a team of illustrators and artisans. A lighting scheme will simulate the passage of a day on a typical Connecticut seascape, from sunrise to nightfall.
“When it’s done, it’s so realistic,” noted Ksepka. “There’s so much work that goes into it, so many details you don’t notice to made it to look just right.”
At the end of the earth science exhibit, visitors will encounter the world of small insects blown up to huge scale.
“The concept is everything is larger than life, 20 times larger than life, a pill bug the size of a soccer ball, a lightning bug the size of a duck,” Ksepka said. “We start with dinosaurs and end up in your backyard, with the kind of bugs you see crawling around.”
Much of those incredibly lifelike models are the handiwork of Sean Murtha, known as an exhibition preparator at the museum. The work is intricate and labor intensive: he spent dozens of hours to create the abdomen of a bumble bee, using paint bristles to replicate the fine hair that covers it. A firefly took about a month to make, while working on other projects.
“He’s a man of many talents,” commented von Stuelpnagel.
“It helps to be a bit of a perfectionist,” quipped Murtha, who is also a bird-watcher and landscape painter. “But there’s never enough time.”
Over 50,000 students a year are likely to observe Murtha’s unique artistry after the new science wing opens. When it all comes together in 2021 and 2022, the museum’s staff and directors hope lovers of art and science will find a treasured destination for generations to come.