Marin museums exploring how to bring back events
Some opening with restrictions after being closed for months
From outdoor and virtual events to mask-making, Marin County museums have had to rely on their creativity and the generosity of the public to keep themselves afloat during months of closure during the pandemic.
Closed to visitors for all but two weeks this past year, the Marin Museum of Bicycling and Mountain Bike Hall of Fame in Fairfax has, in part, been able to keep up on rent by selling more than 1,000 handmade face masks crafted by its board member, Cecile Ojeda Bodington.
“We’re all looking forward to returning back to the point where we can start having events again,” said museum President Marc Vendetti.
Marin’s return to the red tier has allowed museums to reopen at 25% capacity. It is the first time since November that museums have been able to open their doors.
In Sausalito, the Bay Model Visitor Center opened to the public on Friday for the first
time since March 2020. The federally operated center, which hosts a sprawling interactive model of San Francisco Bay and the Sacramento Delta complete with moving tides, is a place best experienced in person. But where once 150,000 people would walk through the center’s doors in a year, none have done so in nearly 12 months.
“For those of us who signed on to a profession to work with the public, it’s been sad to not be able to do that,” the center’s park manager, Christanne Gallagher, said on Friday. “We’re very happy to be able to get back to our roots and be able to welcome people back in and tell them about the facility.”
It’s not all back to normal, however. To prevent large gatherings and virus spread, museums have ticket reservation systems and closed off some exhibits and areas. While the Bay Model Visitor Center can allow up to 100 people now, it is also planning to create a visual tour for schools and for those who may not feel comfortable coming in person, Gallagher said.
Some museums have decided to hold off on reopening.
The volunteer-run Marin County Museum of Bicycling is waiting to reopen until a core group of its volunteers have been fully vaccinated.
“We really want to treat all of our visitors with the utmost care and we don’t want to expose any of our visitors or our volunteers to potential infection,” Vendetti said. “We just want to be really cautious.”
To maintain a presence in the community the museum has held outdoor popups where passersby could browse the gifts on sale or check out some of the museum’s special bicycles. Unable to qualify for government assistance, the museum has sustained itself by expanding its online gift store and redoubling fundraising outreach.The flexibility of its landlord has helped as well, Vendetti said.
Last year, the Marin Museum of the American Indian in Novato had a partial reopening of its gift shop and some small exhibits that could be moved. But this time it decided not to reopen despite the new allowances.
The museum’s small size and the general uncertainty of new coronavirus strains and the vaccination rollout prompted the museum’s board to take a more cautious approach, said Victoria Canby, the museum’s interim
executive director.
“We’re in hibernation mode,” Canby said. “We are seeking financial assistance to help us remain open. By closing, we are losing foot traffic, membership levels, the people that come and visit us for school tours. We’re losing quite a bit by staying closed but we had a meeting all together with the staff and the board. Over a couple of meetings, we discussed it and we all still agreed this is the safest choice.”
The Bay Area Discovery Museum near Fort Baker had the unique ability to remain partially open for most of the last seven months because of its larger outdoor areas, said museum CEO
Kelly McKinley. For December and January, it was the only museum open — albeit outdoors only — in the Bay Area, she said.
“This has been a year of extreme isolation for very young children and we know they learn through play and social interaction with other children,” McKinley said. “That has been very difficult for this past year.”
The youth-focused museum is now using timeslot ticketing to control how many people are on its 7-acre campus, McKinley said.
“We have staff circulating and monitoring all of the indoor and outdoor activities to make sure people are social distancing and wearing their masks,” she said.
“If a space is full, we start a queue and have people take turns. We are also doing regular cleaning throughout the day of all surfaces indoors and outdoors.”
The museum had to cut about 30% of its staff in the summer because of the lost visitation, but McKinley said they hope to recover in the coming year.
The Marin Museum of Contemporary Art in Novato is using a similar ticket reservation system where up to 10 people can be in the gallery at a time every 30 minutes. The closure during the winter months was difficult not only for the museum but for the artists who rely on ticket sales and art sales for their revenue, said museum director Nancy Rehkopf.
“November, December, January are generally good months for the museum and we missed that window this year,” she said.
Fortunately, the museum qualified for federal relief loans to prevent layoffs, Rehkopf said. The city of Novato also waived rent for the months the museum at Hamilton was closed and donors still kept making contributions during this time.
The museum’s reopening comes just in time for its exhibit “No Regrets” by painter M. Louise Stanley.
“At the museum, we’re very hopeful for the future,” Rehkopf said.