'Between Fences' exhibit offers Lehi a taste of the Smithsonian

LEHI — Museum lovers who have a hard time traveling to Washington, D.C., will only have to go as far as Lehi for the next eight weeks to sample a Smithsonian Institution exhibit.

Starting today, the John Hutchings Museum of Natural History in Lehi will host a traveling exhibit — "Between Fences" — that debuted in the National Building Museum in Washington, D.C., in 1997.

The Smithsonian Institution pared the exhibit down to make it portable to small museums across the country through its Museum on Main Street program.

"I think people will come away appreciating the exhibit," Hutchings museum director Susan Whittaker said. "Just thinking about a fence, you don't think of all of the different applications it has. I think (museum patrons) will have different thoughts about what a fence can mean."

In Lehi, the exhibit will be paired with a local display called "A Sense of Place," which Whittaker designed. Along with a pioneer room, a replica of an old general store and a recreation of the old Lehi drugstore, "A Sense of Place" also features a display of donated wire that was given to the museum.

"It's quite a nice display of different kinds of barbed wire," Whittaker said. "We've probably got over 300 different kinds. This exhibit is really cool."

"Between Fences" first came to Utah from Tennessee in the fall and was on display in Layton and Wellsville for five months. After an eight-week stay in Lehi, the exhibit will move on to Boulder and Delta.

Each of the museums is hosting the exhibit through a grant from the Utah Humanities Council, which works directly with the Museum on Main Street program. The council has brought the traveling displays to Utah for the past five years as part of an effort to draw more attention to the state's smaller museums.

Although the council plans to continue to participate with the Museum on Main Street program in the future, it will be a few years before another exhibit comes to Utah, according to Brandon Johnson, program officer for the Utah Humanities Council.

Each exhibit the council brings to Utah costs about $40,000, Johnson says, which the council pays for with donations and state and federal funds. The council also makes grants available to each of the museums that host the exhibit so they can make a local display to match the traveling theme.