Whatcom Museum

Whatcom Museum is bringing "Acting Like Women" to Pickford Film Center as part of this year's Doctober festival, and we'd love for you to join us tomorrow, Friday, October 2, at 5:20 pm.

In the 1970s, a community of women artists in Los Angeles turned performance art into a tool for activism. Working out of a space called the Woman's Building, they challenged sexism and pushed art in bold new directions, exploring the body, gender, and identity in ways that still shape the art world today.

Director Cheri Gaulke was there. She arrived at the Woman's Building in her early twenties, and her film weaves her own story together with archival footage and dozens of interviews with the artists who lived it. Executive produced by Lily Tomlin and Jane Wagner, it's a funny, moving, and inspiring look at a movement that changed what art could be.

After the screening, Whatcom Museum Executive Director Jessica Borusky will lead a live Q&A with Gaulke. It's a rare chance to hear firsthand from one of the artists at the heart of the story.

Get tickets through Pickford Film Center: pickfordfilmcenter.org/movie/acting-like-women

Free First Friday is tomorrow, October 2! Join us for a day of art, music, and making to celebrate our newest exhibition, "From the Vault: Forested," featuring works by Bellingham artists Elizabeth Colborne and Helen Loggie alongside regional artists inspired by Pacific Northwest forests.

Free admission and free activities all day. Open late until 9 pm.

Here's the full schedule:

All day · Bellingham Blooms floral installation in the Lightcatcher lobby
10:15 am · Sweet Art Tour of "Forested" for ages 1 – 5
10:30 am, 11 am, and 11:30 am · Baby and Toddler Music Classes with Little Sapling Music
11 am – 1 pm · Lovely Layered Leaf Rubbings
1 pm · Curator Tour of "Forested" and "Luminous Glow"
1:30 – 3:30 pm · Tree Ring Necklaces with Wild Whatcom
2 – 6 pm · Special open hours at the Helen Loggie Museum of Art
4 pm · "Meet a Musician" with Bellingham Symphony Orchestra harpist Jill Whitman
4 – 7 pm · Free native tree saplings from the City of Bellingham Community Tree Program
6 – 8 pm · Local mushroom display with the Northwest Mushroomers Association
6 – 8 pm · Ledford and McLaughlin busking performance
6 – 8 pm · Community fire pit in the Lightcatcher courtyard

Activities take place at the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher building and Old City Hall. The Family Interactive Gallery closes at 6 pm.

Full details: whatcommuseum.org/free-first-friday/

This Saturday: your last chance to sign up for the "Autumnal Natural Dye Workshop" with Serafima Zavorotny and Fiona Ferguson.

In just three hours, you'll turn madder, weld, and other natural materials into vibrant fall color, experiment with iron and calcium to create new shades, and learn folding and tying techniques from shibori (Japanese tie dye). You'll finish by dyeing a handwoven cotton scarf to take home.

Saturday, September 26, 1 – 4 pm, in the Lightcatcher Studio. Tickets are $70 for members and $80 for the public, and include museum admission, all supplies, and your scarf. Open to ages 16 and up, with only 20 spots available.

Register before Saturday: whatcommuseum.org/event/autumnal-natural-dye-workshop/

Registrations are final. Please arrive within 15 minutes of the start time.

Art, Access, and Enchantment: the Whatcom Museum Gala 2026 is Saturday, November 7 at Chuckanut Bay Distillery.

The gala runs 6 – 9 pm and includes a plated dinner, signature wh***ey cocktails, a full bar, a complimentary ch*****ne toast, a photo booth, a live DJ set by Lotus Drops, and a silent auction. Gluten-free, vegetarian, and non-alcoholic options are available. Tickets are $175. Woodland-elegant attire is encouraged but not required.

For the full evening, Barrel Proof is a VIP wh***ey experience from 5 – 6 pm with a tasting flight of Chuckanut Bay Distillery's award-winning wh***eys, a distillery tour, a talk on Bellingham's bootlegging history with Museum Photo Archivist Jeff Jewell, and a bottle of Chuckanut Rye to take home. Barrel Proof tickets are $275 and include gala admission and open bar for the night.

Proceeds support the Whatcom Museum Foundation and the exhibitions, programs, and local history work that make the Museum what it is.

Space is limited. Purchase by October 24 online, in person at the Museum Store, or by calling 360-778-8930.
https://whatcommuseum.org/gala

Spread your own sunset moth, blue morpho, or five-horned rhinoceros beetle.

On Saturday, October 10, Chicago-based artist Mickey Alice Kwapis leads three specimen preservation workshops in the studio at the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher building. Each session guides you through flexing, posing, pinning, and drying a rehydrated specimen, and you leave with your finished piece plus a spreading board and tool set to keep.

Sunset Moths, 11 am – 12 pm
Morpho Butterflies, 1 – 2 pm
Five-Horned Rhinoceros Beetles, 3 – 4 pm

No experience necessary. Ages 12 and up, 24 spots per class. $80 members, $90 public, which covers museum admission, your specimen and tool kit, and a digital guide to the full spreading process emailed the week after.

Mickey has taught insect pinning and taxidermy at the Houston Museum of Natural Science and the Harvard Museum of Natural History.

Register: www.whatcommuseum.org/organizer/mickey-alice-kwapis/

That's right, it's here. 💥 (Should we make an Old City Hall print? 🤔) Visit the Museum Store and get yourself a lil treat.

Last weeks to see "From the Vault: Hard Edge/Soft Ground" before it closes September 20.

Sonia Delaunay's "Abstract Composition with Semicircles" (1970) is one of the works on view, part of a selection of abstract paintings, prints, drawings, sculptures, and collages from the Whatcom Museum's permanent collection. From Op Art prints to color field paintings, the exhibition explores structural precision, energetic gestures, and playful visual sensation of color and form.

On view in the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher building through September 20. Open Wed – Sun, 12 – 5 pm. Details: whatcommuseum.org/exhibition/hard-edge-soft-ground

Sonia Delaunay, "Abstract Composition with Semicircles," 1970, aquatint etching, edition 9/125, 28 × 22 in. (framed). Whatcom Museum Collection, 2000.0060, Gift of George and Pearl Yewell.

This Free First Friday, Setting Sun Circle brings two films and two voices to Old City Hall.

Free Borsey will share his journey with Coast Salish canoe culture, including the year-long restoration of the Lummi Youth Canoe, Beauty, and the collective effort to bring her back to the water. Raven Borsey will speak on traditional Lummi reef net fishing, one of the oldest and most sustainable fishing practices of the Coast Salish peoples, and how Indigenous stewardship has sustained these waters since time immemorial.

The evening also includes screenings of "West Shore" and "Our Sacred Obligation."

Friday, September 4, 6 pm at Old City Hall Rotunda Room, 121 Prospect St. Free. Details: whatcommuseum.org/free-first-friday

Water is not just a resource in Northwest Washington. It is the shared asset our whole region runs on. Three free panels this Free First Friday take that seriously.

4 – 5:15 pm: Water is Life: Our Shared Culture, Environment, and Economy. Jay Julius (fisherman, former Chairman of Lummi Nation), Rich Appel (Water for Whatcom, Appel Farms), and Perry Eskridge (Whatcom County Association of Realtors), moderated by Ethan Smith.

5:30 – 6:45 pm: Water Under Threat: Climatic Challenges to Our Communities. Gavin Willis (Whatcom County Agriculture Water Board), Free Borsey (Lummi Nation artist and environmental steward), and Everson Mayor John Perry, moderated by David Roberts.

7 – 8:15 pm: Creative Thinking About Future Water Resource Management. Keynote by water attorney and author Jim Davenport, with Tom Tebb (former Director, Office of Columbia River) and Jim Papp (marine shipping specialist, photographer, and author).

All three are in the Lightcatcher Studio, 250 Flora St. Details: whatcommuseum.org/free-first-friday

Nooksack storytellers Tammy Cooper-Woodrich and Angela LeToi share tales rooted in Coast Salish tradition and place this Free First Friday.

Tammy has been a Tribal Storyteller since 1985, sharing stories across Washington State and as far as Port Stephens, Australia. Angela, a member of the Nooksack Indian Tribe, began telling stories in 2017 following in her mother's footsteps while attending Northwest Indian College.

Friday, September 4, 12 – 1 pm in the People of the Sea and Cedar Gallery at the Whatcom Museum's Lightcatcher building, 250 Flora St. Free and open to all ages. Details: whatcommuseum.org/free-first-friday