By PAM HARBAUGH

Learn, socialize, network, educate, thrill…you can do all that and more by signing up to be a DOCENT at the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts. The deadline to sign up is Wednesday, April 13.

Docents are those wonderful people who are a museum’s volunteer answer people. After being taught about a particular exhibition and the artist/s who have created it, plus the curator who has brought it together and overseen the installation, a docent may lead museum visitors through the exhibition. Or, they just stand to the side and are there in case a patron may have a question or two.

Docent training at Ruth Funk Center.

Now you’re not just thrown onto stage, so to speak. You’re given training first.

And the time is now to sign up for docent training at the Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts, a museum that keeps bringing in smarter and smarter exhibitions.

The museum’s docent training program begins April 18. However, you’ve got until Wednesday, April 13, to sign up for it.

Exhibition training runs 9:30 a.m. until noon Mondays from April 18 to June 13, 2016 (no training on Memorial Day, May 30).

April 18: Introduction
April 25: “Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts Collections Presentation” by Keidra Daniels Navaroli
May 2: “Basic History of Textiles” by Lesa Lorusso
May 9: “Textile Terminology” by Lesa Lorusso
May 16: Ruth Funk Center tour strategies and “Looms and Their Function” by Debra Howe
May 23: “Textiles and Contemporary Art” by Carla Funk
June 6: Ruth Funk Center tour strategies and reporting procedures
June 13: Peer review

A special docent briefing will be held 10 a.m. May 27 with Carla Funk speaking on “Radical Elements & A View Within,” with that exhibit’s opening reception from 5 to 7 p.m. later that day.

The Ruth Funk Center for Textile Arts is on the campus of Florida Tech, 150 W. University Blvd. Call 321-674-8313. For more information about the docent program, click here.