The Hockaday Museum of Art’s first Senior Tour and Tea Day of the new year takes place Thursday.

The event takes place from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month. Visitors age 60 and older get free admission to the Hockaday during those hours, and the museum provides complimentary cookies, coffee and tea from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m.

A highlight of the day, a free tour led by a museum-trained docent, takes place at 10:30 a.m. Interested guests should gather at the front desk to start the tour.

People who have attended other senior tour and teas will find two new exhibits featured this month. 

Guests familiar with Eastern Montana will appreciate Edith Freeman’s “Montana Seasons.” Executed as detailed and colorful woodcut prints, the works in the exhibit explore the landscape subtleties of the east side of the state.

According to the museum’s website, Freeman mastered the difficult technique of reduction woodcut printing.

She started her career as a painter, and then began experimenting with woodcuts in the 1960s. Freeman eventually developed her own complex process of printing multiple colors of ink with a single block through a multiple-step process.

A native Montanan, Freeman drew inspiration from familiar elements of the Eastern Montana landscape, such as iris, yucca, sage, sandstone outcroppings and wooded clearings. Her art is described as “descriptively faithful” yet sophisticated through her expressive manipulation of color and space.

Also new for January, the Hockaday presents its third annual exhibition of “Catch the Vision: From Dreams to Discovery.” This exhibit provides a showcase for future professional Montana artists of all ages, media and styles.

Appropriate for 2013, the collection consists of the work of 13 different artists who have never had a solo exhibition at a gallery or museum or been represented by a commercial gallery. A selection of work on the website shows a photograph by Mike Stone, a sculpture by Ken Jonas and a mixed media work by Celinda English from previous exhibits.

As always, the Hockaday’s Crown of the Continent Gallery presents artists of Glacier National Park with familiar names such as John Fery, Nicholas Oberling, Mark Ogle, Leonard Lopp, O.C. Selzer, C.M. Russell, T.J. Hileman, Ace Powell and Adolph Heinze.

The monthly Senior Tour and Tea is sponsored by Medical Arts Pharmacy, Sykes’ Pharmacy, Walgreens Pharmacy in Kalispell and the Daily Inter Lake.

Visitors have a wheelchair-accessible entry and elevator. The museum is located at 302 Second Ave. E.

For more information, visit the website, www.hockadaymuseum.org, or call 755-5268.