With the state of Illinois recently lifting restrictions due to the pandemic, June has been a month of reopenings across Aurora, and that includes the Aurora Historical Society, which reopened its gift shop and exhibit gallery at the Pierce Art and History Center downtown Saturday for the first time since March 2020.
Visitors were treated to a first floor exhibit entitled “Our Favorite Things” that included various artifacts dating from 1868 to 2020. A second floor exhibit, “Aurora Story,” is scheduled to open later this summer.
Aurora Historical Society Executive Director John Jaros said plans for the “Our Favorite Things” exhibit began in earnest nearly a month ago and includes some unique items.
“We’re very happy to be reopening our doors. It’s been a really long time, but we’re finally ready to let people in,” Jaros said. “We’re kind of doing a staged opening and starting with the first floor. We’ve revised and rejuvenated the gift shop and put a new exhibit in the first floor gallery.”
Jaros said the new exhibit includes “a couple of dozen main things – neat things from the collection that are Aurora-related” highlighted by icons including a 1910 restored Thor motorcycle, a pinball machine from 1939 and a Garfield Goose puppet on display.
In terms of the phased opening, Jaros said “we are trying to change the second floor gallery as well” and that “with the help we have, it’s just easier to start slow and get in gear with the first floor while refining what’s going on in the second floor.”
“We want the ‘Aurora Story’ to be the best exhibit it can be and we have to transport some stuff over here as there are some gaps in the second floor exhibit because we took things out for the first floor, and we didn’t want to put too much pressure on ourselves,” he said. “We’ll have another exhibit soon next month to show people something else.”
Mary Clark Ormond, president of the Aurora Historical Society Board of Trustees, said the new “Our Favorite Things” exhibit is particularly special given the fact there has been some separation from the public for a while.
“We will be glad to see people again and for me, we think people will love the exhibit as it’s very random in a way and has some of our more popular pieces – when you take them out of the way they were displayed previously and put them in a new light, they just pop,” she said.
Scott Sherwood, who works in the gift shop and does art conservation, came to the Pierce Art and History Center Saturday and said the last year “was about missing the public and the chance to mount really great exhibitions.”
“We’re excited about this show we’re putting on now. My favorite thing to do is to prep stuff for exhibition,” he said. “There might not be the same pent-up demand for something like this compared to a swimming pool, but this is a resource for a lot of people – family research, property research and they have only been able to experience that in a limited way online. They want to come to the Tanner House and come in here and see the artifacts face to face.”
Ormond agrees that the face-to-face contact has been perhaps the biggest loss in the past year.
“Having this exhibit reminds us that sharing these things – sharing history – is the reason we exist,” Ormond said. “We did do a video tour during the pandemic, but there’s nothing like the opportunity to share a conversation with people over the counter.”
Jaros said a third floor exhibit is also in the works and should be ready to open for the First Fridays event on Aug. 6 which will mean “the full three floors of the building will be open and operational.”
The Aurora Historical Society gift shop and gallery at the Pierce Art and History Center, 20 E. Downer Place, is open from noon to 4 p.m., Wednesdays to Saturdays.
The Aurora Historical Society’s Tanner House Museum remains closed.
David Sharos is a freelance reporter for The Beacon-News.
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After being closed 'a really long time' due to the pandemic, Aurora Historical Society reopens shop, gallery - Chicago Tribune
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