News Release

The Johns Hopkins University's Evergreen House, a fine arts museum and contemporary art center housed in a Gilded Age mansion on 26 landscaped acres in North Baltimore, seeks volunteers to be trained as museum guides.

Docent training classes will be held from 10 a.m. to 12 noon on five consecutive Mondays: March 19 and 26, and April 2, 9, and 16. Volunteers who complete guide training will be expected to commit to a minimum of one three-hour shift per month. To reserve a space or for additional information, contact Nancy Powers at (410) 516-0341. For information about the museum, visit online at www.jhu.edu/historichouses.

Owned by Baltimore's renowned Garrett family from 1878 until 1942, Evergreen is filled with more than 50,000 of the family's belongings. The museum also conducts contemporary art exhibitions, special events, artists' residencies, lectures, and performances, all of which are open to the public.

Prospective docents should have an interest in art, history, and/or architecture and a desire to share that interest with others. Training, provided by museum staff, includes lectures and readings on the history of Evergreen, the Garrett family, and the museum's extensive collections, including post-Impressionist paintings, drawings by Degas and Picasso, Chinese porcelain, Japanese lacquerware, the Garrett Library of rare books, and one of the largest private collections of Tiffany glass. New guides will also learn about museum practices and will be taught techniques for presenting Evergreen in ways that satisfy visitor expectations.

Volunteers for Evergreen join the intellectual life of The Johns Hopkins University, a fascinating community of art and architecture lovers, history scholars, educators, and museum supporters. They are invited to participate in special social events, openings, lectures, and monthly trips to historic sites and exhibitions. Museum volunteers also receive a 10 percent discount at the Evergreen and Homewood museum shops, are included on the Evergreen and Homewood mailing lists to receive exhibition and program publicity, as well as each museum's newsletter, and are eligible for the staff membership rate at the O'Connor Recreation Center and partial borrowing privileges at the Sheridan Libraries.