It’s been over five years since the Triton Museum of Art held is annual Blues Bash – a blues festival on the grassy grounds in the museum’s backyard. And, while the Blues Bash is not slated for a reprise, the museum did bring back the excitement of that event with a concert featuring Legally Blue on Oct. 5.
The blues band, who recently played Santa Clara’s Concerts in the Park series, played a solo two and a half hour set throughout the afternoon, where the sun was scorching, but guests were able to lounge around under the shady trees near the historic Jamison Brown house.
We had the opportunity to get this band, said Chief Curator Preston Metcalf, which has a nice tie into Silicon Valley – What’s nice is that it’s drawing our most loyal people who are interested in coming and spending a nice afternoon not watching football. The people who have signed up to come here have all said that they’d rather spend an afternoon at the museum, which makes us feel really good.
For a $15 entrance fee ($10 for museum members), guests enjoyed the show and could purchase beer from Faultline Brewing Company or box lunches of a California cob wrap (grilled chicken, bacon and avocado) or veggie wrap (roasted vegetables and cheeses) with a black rice salad (green beans, edamame, cherry tomatoes, garbanzo beans and toasted walnuts) and cookie from The Party Helpers.
The food was donated, the beer was donated – this is the ideal fundraiser, said Executive Director Jill Meyers. The majority of those donations are 100 percent going to the museum – It’s a gorgeous space. The sound is wonderful and the band is amzing. We have all the elements to make this a great event here [should we continue having it].
All of the money raised will go to supporting the museum’s education and exhibition programs, which includes the upcoming Nightmare @tritonmuseum – a Halloween version of the museum’s popular Night @tritonmuseum.
We’re doing a haunted museum, said Meyers. And, the haunted museum is being created by artists. It’s definitely going to be creepy and disturbing, so it’s for pre-teen and above. We’re going to have things for kids as well [like trick-or-treating], but it’s the haunted museum we’re really excited about.
Nightmare @tritonmuseum is a free event, but there will be a nominal fee to tour the haunted museum.
After that is the holiday gift fair, and what we’re doing this year is we’re pairing it with the Christmas Tree Lighting and Free Fridays with the Santa Clara Ballet, said Meyers. I’m really excited because I think it will bring in a lot of people.
Between now and the two events, the museum started an eight-week art history lecture series, “Art and Science: Complementary Languages of Discovery with Chief Curator Preston Metcalf,” which is held every Thursday, except October 23, at 7 p.m. Drop-in fee is $20. Visit, http://tritonmuseum.org/education_adults_arthistory_fall2014.php for more information
