Go behind the scenes at Lake County’s Discovery Museum
There is a small museum hidden in the middle of the woodlands in the Lake County Forest Preserve that is gaining a national reputation.
“Classic Images: Ansel Adams” exhibition recently finished its run at The Discovery Museum in the preserve near Wauconda to record crowds who came to see the photographic prints by the renowned photographer.
“My ears are always open for anything neat out there,” explained exhibitions manager Steve Furnett. “This Ansel Adams exhibit came to us from the Lakeview Museum in Peoria which offered it to us if we wanted to rent it as a traveling exhibition. We jumped all over it because Ansel Adams is a great name.”
In the past several years, they have brought in exhibits that included a retrospective of NFL great Walter Payton, a photographic essay of John Lennon and Yoko Ono Bed-in for Peace event in Montreal in 1969, a comprehensive collection of Pulitzer Prize-winning photographs and many other interesting shows.
“One unique factor about our museum is that we can do what we want out here. We can do a photography exhibit. We can do an art exhibit. We can do a natural history exhibit. We can bring to Lake County everything that you would find at a big city museum and we can support our mission,” said Furnett.
The upcoming exhibit will be “The Blues: From the Heart & Soul” including a collection by blues musician “Barrelhouse” Chuck Goering starting February 18.
The exhibit will not only include photographs and original musical instruments, but also a blues bar and interactive features designed by exhibitions developer Justin Collins.