Sticks and stones may break our bones, but they also can inform us of our past. The Granville Museum Consortium, comprised of the Denison Museum, the Granville Historical Society Museum and the Robbins Hunter Museum/Avery Downer House, will demonstrate this theory with a cooperative exhibition, “Sticks and Stones: Important Wood and Stone Objects and Artifacts in Granville Museums.”

“Sticks and Stones” is composed of three separate exhibitions that feature art and artifacts of wood and stone from each of Granville’s museums. These unique objects, fragments, and images reflect a rich local, national and global history touching on subjects ranging from McKinley presidential memorabilia and ancient Pompeiian mosaics to Greek Revival mantel architecture of the 19th century. The exhibitions will be open until Monday, August 16.

The opening reception for the exhibition series is at 4 p.m. on Friday, May 28, in the Denison Museum (240 West Broadway). A gallery talk by Cameron Close, Granville Museum Consortium docent, “Sorting Bricks: The Hunt Collection in the Denison Museum,” will take place at 6 p.m. that evening. The opening reception and gallery talk are free and open to the public.

The Denison Museum exhibition titled, “Heavy Lifting: An Eclectic ‘Grand Tour’ Collected,” explores the museum’s Hunt Collection. The Hunt Collection of stone and ceramic bricks and structural artifacts from the Classical World, China, ancient Egypt, Babylon, and even India, served as memorabilia from an eclectic “Grand Tour” of culturally significant sites around the globe. Combined with bricks collected from buildings important to U.S. history the artifacts originally collected by wealthy turn-of-the-century Ohio brick manufacturer William H. Hunt document a curious and concentrated fascination. The exhibition is open daily from noon to 5 p.m. and noon to 7 p.m. on Thursdays.

“Sticks and Stones: Keys to the Past,” is the title of the exhibition hosted by the Granville Historical Society Museum. A walking stick topped by the head of President William McKinley, a keystone from the first stone and brick school in Granville, and a sapling pierced with bullet holes and retrieved from a Civil War battlefield are just a few of the artifacts drawn from the permanent collection of the Granville Historical Society for this special exhibition. Each is a key to a story that unlocks a door opening on the past. The exhibition is open Fridays noon to 3 p.m., Saturdays 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., and Sundays noon to 4 p.m.

The Robbins Hunter Museum/Avery Downer House will sponsor an exhibition, “Building Blocks of the Ohio Country: Taken from Nature.” Looking closer at the body of the museum, the seldom-discovered characteristics that make the Avery-Downer home an American architectural treasure will be found. From a portion of an original Greek Revival column, to the mantels that once framed heart-warming fires, to the centuries-old ticking clocks and china chests made of local woods, these ordinary building features and home furnishings are anything but ordinary, instead holding glimmers of the 168-year-old home’s blend of organic influences. The museum is open Wednesdays through Saturdays from 1 to 4 p.m.