Art History

The ultimate Thursday night out is back. Join us for BAM Thursdays (Bar, Art, and Music) at the Columbus Museum of Art. Live music, great art, delicious bites, vendors and fresh cocktails in the garden space. Limited seating is also available inside Schokko Café (yummy sharable plates). **FEE:** BAM Thursday evenings offer **FREE general admission** from 5:00–9:00 PM. See what’s on view [here](https://www.columbusmuseum.org/art-exhibitions/on-view-now/) (special exhibits are $5.00 fee). **TOUR**: I'll lead a tour of the main museum from 6:30pm til 7pm. FREE **PARKING** behind the museum is $7.00. Nearby parking a little cheaper. **SEATING**: *Tables are available on a first come first serve basis for dining. In the event of inclement weather, BAM Thursdays will move inside to the atrium.* **DRESS**: Summer dressy casual

Want to see your work shine and put your pride on display? Then come to July's Creativity Circle! We will be making simple Suncatchers with tissue paper! Seats and supplies limited! Come while you can for as long as you like! Westerville Public Library in Meeting Room D.

Let’s meet and wander the galleries! General admission on Sundays is free.

Hosted by Ohio History Connection Address: Octagon Earthworks 125 N. 33rd St., Newark, OH 43055 UNESCO World Heritage Site Join us on June 18 at the Octagon Earthworks Visitor Center for a special evening celebrating the release of John E. Hancock’s new book, **Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks: Landscape Monuments of the Ancient Ohio Valley.** Event Schedule • Doors open: 6:30 p.m. • Lecture begins: 7 p.m. John Hancock will share the story behind Ohio’s remarkable Hopewell earthworks and how eight of these architectural masterpieces became UNESCO World Heritage Sites. He will also discuss how this new Smithsonian publication presents the latest knowledge about their astonishing scope, subtle beauty, and the brilliant Indigenous designers and builders who created them nearly 2,000 years ago. • Book signing: Immediately following the lecture. Books will be available for purchase. **Admission** • $10 per person or Free with a purchase of a book • Free for OHC members • Free for students with a valid ID **About the Book** Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks presents Ohio’s eight UNESCO-inscribed earthworks in a richly illustrated volume from Smithsonian Books. This expanded and re-edited edition of the sites’ World Heritage nomination dossier was produced in collaboration with the Ohio History Connection and the National Park Service. The book features illustrated descriptions and histories of these Indigenous masterpieces, summaries of archaeological research, insights from American Indian scholars and leaders, and discussions of the earthworks’ design, construction, and cultural significance. **About the Author** John E. Hancock taught architecture, design, and history at the University of Cincinnati for 40 years. He has produced numerous multimedia exhibits and publications about Ohio’s earthworks and served as the principal author and photographer for the Hopewell Ceremonial Earthworks UNESCO World Heritage nomination. In addition to this Smithsonian publication (April 2026), he has also released Traveler’s Guide to Ancient Ohio (April 2026). Come learn about one of the world’s greatest ancient landscapes and meet the author behind this exciting new publication! More info: [https://www.ohiohistory.org/events/lecture-and-book-signing-with-john-e-hancock/](https://www.ohiohistory.org/events/lecture-and-book-signing-with-john-e-hancock/)

NFT's are here to stay folks! This is a group for like minded people interested in understanding, leveraging, using, creating for, profiting from, trading too i suppose, NFT's.. everything around them, complexity, fear and exploits, best practices and more. **PLUS** This group will talk AI ART tools, techniques, artists, video, audio, prototypes and more in the AI assisted production space- ART specifically, but we can get into any aspect of some of the cooler things happening in AI in general.

The topic for June is "Roadtrip" Speak Easy: true stories, told live. The idea is simple: an audience, an open microphone, and great stories. Hilarious, gripping, poignant- it's up to you. Audiences are invited to come to listen or come to tell as folks from all corners of Columbus offer their stories live on stage! Held at Wild Goose Creative's warm, intimate space, this night of tales occurs on the 3rd Thursday of every month. Doors open at 6:30 pm, show starts at 7:00 pm. Please arrive early if you want to tell, as we generally only have room for a limited number of tellers, and the sign-up sheet has a tendency to fill up fast. Formed around the idea that people need stories--they're what hold and draw us together--SpeakEasy celebrates the strangeness and commonness of being human. And in a world of smartphones, Facebook, Twitter, and more . . . it gives people a real, breathing, in-person way to connect. The night is geared for true stories of all kinds, taking the best tales told around kitchen tables, in darkened pubs, on the street corner, and at late-night parties and giving them an audience. Speak Easy is also a great outlet for performers, writers, and artists looking to share their favorite stories and perfect their skills. We strongly encourage tellers to please tell the story rather than read it so we keep within the spirit of good storytelling and stay engaged with the audience. All are welcome. Hang around after the show for a drink and build community!

Welcome to Drunken Philosophy, a casual, curious, social discussion club. Come grab a drink and a seat at The Oracle. **Optional topic for this meetup: Where is everybody?** In 1950 the physicist Enrico Fermi was talking about aliens over lunch and asked a question that still has not gone away: if the universe is so vast and so old, and even a fraction of those billions of stars have planets, where is everyone? By the numbers the galaxy should be crowded with civilizations. Instead we look up and hear silence. That gap between "they should be everywhere" and "we see no one" is the Fermi Paradox. One of the most unsettling answers is the idea of a **Great Filter**: somewhere on the road from dead chemistry to a galaxy-spanning civilization, there is at least one step that is almost impossible to get past. Maybe the filter is behind us. Maybe life starting at all, or simple cells becoming complex, or intelligence ever evolving, is the freak accident, and we already cleared the hard part. Or maybe the filter is ahead of us, and advanced civilizations reliably wipe themselves out before they spread. Here is the part that messes with people. If we ever found life somewhere else, even pond scum on Mars, most people would call it the greatest discovery in history. But it might be the worst possible news. It would mean life is common, the early steps are easy, and the hard step is still in front of us. So the eerie silence overhead might actually be the best sign we could ask for. **Questions to wrestle with:** * Is it better to be alone? Would you rather we find alien life and learn we are not special, or find nothing and quietly improve our odds of surviving? * Where do you bet the filter sits, behind us or ahead of us, and why? * If it is ahead of us, what is it? Nuclear war, climate collapse, AI, something we cannot even picture yet? And can we do anything about a filter we cannot see coming? * Does any of this change how you live, or how humanity should be spending its time and money right now? As always the prompt is optional. Come for the conversation, stay for the drinks, and bring your own questions.