’Tis the season for shopping and gift giving, and area stores are ready and willing to help.
But what about that difficult-to- shop-for person? Or are you just looking for a place to pause during the holiday rush?
If you’re looking for a solution, thank the following area museums and culture centers.
Each is offering something to see, gifts to consider, and — since the shops help support organizations — an opportunity to support a regional resource.
So, let’s see what’s in the galleries and in the shops:
Morven Museum & Garden
The museum in the historic home of Declaration of Independence signer Richard Stockton and poet Anais Boudinot Stockton is offering two attractions in addition to its permanent exhibition: “Historic Moven: A Window into its Past,” an examination of the home’s residents as well as its time as the mansion of several New Jersey governors.
One of the attractions is an exhibition of paintings of New Jersey wildlife by self-taught artist and ornithologist Gerard Rutgers Hardenbergh (1856 – 1915). The other is Morven’s annual “Festival of Trees,” a holiday-themed presentation featuring trees decorated by regional garden and social groups.
But take time to check the Morven Museum & Garden gift shop in the former servants quarters building behind the Colonial-era mansion, which also serves as a ticket booth (but there’s no charge to enter the shop).
Items rotate, yet standard products include stationery, books, clothing and accessories, Morven-related items, and some surprises.
Morven Museum and Garden, 55 Stockton Street, Princeton. Wednesday through Sunday, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. 609-924-8144 or www.morven.org.
Grounds For Sculpture
The internationally known Grounds For Sculpture in Hamilton is open all year and features exhibitions of its permanent collection of hundreds of indoor and outdoor works of art by contemporary sculptors as well as temporary installations by an international roster of artists.
GFS’s current attraction is the outdoor “Night Forms: dreamloop,” the Philadelphia-based Klip Collective’s after-hours mixture of light, sound, art, and nature. But don’t forget the major sculpture exhibition, “Bruce Beasley: Sixty-Year Retrospective,” as well as “That’s Worth Celebrating: The Life and work of the Johnson Family,” with special attention to GFS’s founder, sculptor J. Seward Johnson.
The grounds’ gift shop is located in the Welcome Center, a short walk from the drive-up ticket booth. One piece of good news is that you don’t need a ticket to enter the center and visit the glass-enclosed shop.
Here shoppers can find colorful scarves, men’s ties, art jigsaw puzzles, and Johnson’s combination of hand-signed prints and book, “Seward Johnson: A Life in Public Art” miniature replicas of his large-scale French-impressionist-themed sculptures found throughout the grounds, and exhibition-related books, cards, and even clothing.
Grounds For Sculpture, Fairgrounds Road, Hamilton. Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. www.groundsforsculpture.org.
The New Jersey State Museum
Located a few doors down from the New Jersey Statehouse on West State Street in Trenton, the museum is presenting “Preserving the Pinelands: Albert Horner’s Portraits of a National Treasure,” a photographic love letter to the state’s huge forest. Also on view are the permanent exhibits featuring New Jersey dinosaurs and fossils, history, and a gallery of prominent state and American artists.
Visitors can easily stop in the second-floor gift shop that features New Jersey-themed gifts. And considering that New Jersey is where the first dinosaur skeleton in the world was found, it’s fitting that there’s a variety of dinosaur themed items that range from plastic models to dinosaur lamps and dinosaur shirts.
Other state-related items include ornaments featuring the state flag and state symbols, such as the state insect (the bee), and colorful fashion accessories such as a scarf bearing a stained-glass window design of the New Jersey emblem.
Books on New Jersey history and artists are also included, and there is a section offering shirts and hats featuring designs by noted Trenton street artist Leon Rainbow.
New Jersey State Museum, 205 West State Street, Trenton, Tuesday through Sundays, 9 a.m. to 4:45 p.m. Free. 609-292-6464 or www.nj.gov/state/museum.
The Trenton City Museum
The museum located in the Ellarlie — the 19th-century mansion designed by American architect John Notman in the park designed by noted American landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted — is currently presenting the exhibition “Painting the Moon and Beyond: Lois Dodd and Friends Explore the Night Sky,” a look at prominent American artist — and New Jersey native — Dodd and her circle of New Jersey and New York artists who explored painting in the night. Also on view is the continuation of “Trenton Treasures,” featuring the work of the late Trenton watercolorist and regionalist painter Robert Sakson.
But don’t forget Molly’s, the museum gift shop. It is fittingly named after Molly Merlino, a Trenton artist and community leader who advocated for the creation of the museum and was on hand to run the shop.
Reflecting Merlino’s pro-Trenton and pro-art spirit, the museum offers a good deal of Trenton and museum-related gifts, including artwork by area artists, including that of the above mentioned Sakson, as well as framed works by the late Trenton icons Peggy Gummere and Tom Molloy. There are also books by regional writers or regional subjects and fun general items such as colorful socks, including a pair sporting the image of President Biden and one of his dogs.
Trenton City Museum at Ellarslie, Cadwalader Park, Parkside and Stuyvesant avenues, Trenton. Tuesdays through Saturdays 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Sundays 1 to 4 p.m. Free. 609-989-1191 or www.ellarslie.org.
The Old Barracks Museum
The building that played an important role during 1776 Battle of Trenton and George Washington’s surprise attack on the Hessian soldiers housed there is now a museum with more than 2,000 objects ranging from military materials to historic fine art and craft works.
It also has a large shop in a period room that makes one feel as if one is shopping in the past. Here there are fun Colonial-era objects such as tri-cornered hats, pens, and mugs. There are also books and recordings, as well as candy, teas, and Old Barracks souvenirs.
Old Barracks Museum, 101 Barrack Street, Trenton. Monday through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Access to shop is free. 609-396-1776 or www.barracks.org.
Artworks Trenton
The vital Trenton Arts Center is exhibiting it is annual “Red Dot 10X10 Fundraising Exhibition” through January 8.
Each year more than 100 Trenton-area artists create works on a 10-inch by 10-inch canvas for Artworks to present and sell for $100 and split the proceeds with the artist. The original works reflect a vast array of approaches and mediums and are created by emerging and established regional artists.
The full exhibit can be viewed online.
Artworks, 19 Everett Alley and South Stockton Street, Trenton. www.artworkstrenton.org
Princeton University Art Museum
The museum’s main building is closed for construction but, in addition to its pop-up exhibitions and online programming, its Art@Bainbridge venue at the Bainbridge House, 15 Nassau Street, is presenting Los Angeles–based artist Jesse Stecklow’s first solo museum exhibition.
According the museum, the artist “explores the individual character of the rooms at Bainbridge House, outfitting each gallery with installations that interweave imagery, motion, and sound to heighten visitors’ attention to the architecture and to the ways that our personal associations, memories, and perspectives profoundly shape our experiences of space.”
Hours are Tuesday and Wednesday, 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Thursday through Saturday, 11 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m. to 4 p.m.
The university has also recently introduced a new exhibition space, Art on Hulfish, located at 11 Hulfish Street. The inaugural exhibition, on view through January 23, is “Orlando,” curated by Tilda Swinton.
“Orlando presents the work of 11 artists who experiment with the expansiveness and possibilities of human experience,” note museum materials. “The exhibition is inspired by the themes of Virginia Woolf’s 1928 revolutionary novel Orlando: A biography — the story of a young aristocrat who lives for three centuries without aging and mysteriously shifts gender along the way — and Sally Potter’s equally groundbreaking 1992 film Orlando, which featured an androgynous Swinton in the starring role.”
The gallery is open Sundays through Wednesdays, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., and Thursdays through Saturdays, 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m.
Meanwhile, the museum shop a few blocks away at the corner of Palmer Square and Nassau Street, provides the opportunity for shoppers to stop in for small gifts including candles, art picture puzzles, clothing accessories, and books. It’s open Monday through Wednesday, 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., Thursdays through Saturday, 10 a.m. to 8:30 p.m., Sunday, 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. and Christmas Eve and New Year’s Eve, 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
For more information on the Princeton University Art Museum’s Art@Bainbridge, Art on Hulfish, and museum shop, visit artmuseum.princeton.edu.
West Windsor Arts Council
WWAC’s Whole World Arts inside the MarketFair mall is offering affordable art as well as jewelry, ceramics, women’s accessories, and more available for sale. Hours are Wednesdays and Thursdays from 1 to 7 p.m.; Fridays from 1 to 6 p.m.; Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.; and Sundays from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. through December 24. www.westwindsorarts.org.
Gallery 14
The photography collective’s gallery in Hopewell is currently presenting its “Members Holiday Show” through Sunday, December 19. The group is also hosting a boutique sale featuring photo prints and small gifts including calendars, note cards, clothing accessories, and jewelry. Open Saturdays and Sundays, through December 19, noon to 5 p.m.
Gallery 14, 14 Mercer Street, Hopewell. www.gallery14.org.
