Drawing the Line (Then Crossing It): Using the Arts to Interpret the Humanities

90-minute session

Location: Hilton Albany, Chambers

Day/Time: Sunday, April 7 // 1 - 2:30 PM

About: The Museum at Bethel Woods staff invites conference attendees to talk about the future. They have been experimenting with programs that engage visitors with new ways to approach the humanities including Special Projects Art Crew, Live Music Pop Ups, and Art and Architecture Festival, and the Generations of Woodstock Initiative. In this session, Bethel Woods staff will share ideas and programs they have developed that illustrate their successes and learning opportunities. The session will include time to discuss ideas about how we can cooperatively create the future of museum programming and present live music. It will be ”way cooler” than a typical conference session.

Presenters:

Neal V Hitch, Director, The Museum at Bethel Woods

Neal V Hitch, Ph.D., is a historian, preservation architect, and museum specialist with over 25-years’ experience developing historic sites and museums. Dr. Hitch has a specialty developing strategies for visitor engagement and innovative humanities programming. Dr. Hitch holds advanced degrees in Architecture and History. He has worked in several premiere visitor destinations, serving as director of museums in the Caribbean, Hawaii, Alaska, and on the border of Mexico in California.

Julia Fell, Curator of Exhibits, The Museum at Bethel Woods

Julia Fell is the Curator of Exhibits at The Museum at Bethel Woods. Her curatorial and design work includes Lights Color Fashion: Posters and Patterns of 1960s San Francisco and the award-winning special exhibition in 2019 We Are Golden: Reflections on the 50th Anniversary of the Woodstock Festival and Aspirations for a Peaceful Future. She is the lead curator of the Oral History Initiative managing an IMLS grant in 2023 and an NEH grant in 2024.

Ethan Ryan, Intern, The Museum at Bethel Woods

Ethan Ryan is a Museum Studies student at the Cooperstown Graduate Program in Cooperstown, NY. He received his Bachelor’s Degree in Public History from Longwood University with a focus on Art History. Ethan was the Summer 2023 Curatorial & Oral History Intern at the Museum at Bethel Woods, during which time he took part in developing and executing a wide breadth of experimental programming. He continued to work with the Museum remotely through the fall. His work has included research on LGBTQ+ voices in the counterculture.

Lyndsay Stone, Singer/Songwriter, Independent Artist

Lyndsay Stone is a folk-rock singer/songwriter based in NYC. She emphasizes lyricism layered over intricate fingerpicking, surprising chord structures, and lilting vocal melodies that are often referred to as persistent earworms. Her debut LP “A Couple Seeds”, was released May 2023, explores the meeting place of personal and collective transformation, with chilling clarity and power.