Take a Bow, Bowers

May 18 is rolling around, so once again it’s time to celebrate International Museum Day. Doesn’t ring a bell?

“I’m sorry to say we haven’t even heard of the date or the event,” Andrea Harris, a spokeswoman for the Laguna Art Museum, confessed last week. She is hardly out of the loop, though: Officials at most museums in Orange County said pretty much the same thing.

But the fact remains that Sunday is the 20th annual observance of International Museum Day, which was established by the 12th Assembly of the International Council of Museums, a group in Washington D.C., to call attention to the role museums play in preserving the world’s natural, cultural and artistic heritage.

The fact also remains that the day has not been celebrated officially in this country in 18 years, since President Jimmy Carter declared an observance in 1979. But that hasn’t stopped a number of museums in the United States from offering special programs for the day. The only ones in Orange County this year will take place at the Bowers Museum of Cultural Art in Santa Ana.

Bowers spokesman Brian Langston recalled that a few years ago the museum marked the occasion with a free-admission day. “But generally speaking,” he said, “Museum Day has not been a well-publicized event. This year we realized that our Kidseum fund-raiser, which is dedicated to giving underserved or underprivileged kids exposure to museums, would be a natural” tie-in.

So, an International Family Festival will take place Sunday at the Bowers Kidseum, from 1:30 to 4:30 p.m. A benefit to support Kidseum summer art camp scholarships, the festival will include music, dance, art projects, face and body painting, ethnic foods and storytelling. Families can dance to the reggae rhythms of Steel Fusion and listen to Jewish folk songs by Osi Sladek. The Kidseum is at North Main and 18th streets in Santa Ana. Tickets are $15; call (714) 480-1524 for reservations.

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Here’s a sampling of special programs and activities at other museums throughout Southern California this weekend:

The Los Angeles Children’s Museum will present an “Animal Actors of Hollywood” program Saturday and Sunday at noon and 2 p.m. Two hairy friends will be on hand: Finster, a capuchin monkey who has appeared in the films “Cutthroat Island” and “Monkey Trouble,” and a golden retriever named Comet from TV’s “Full House” and “The Drew Carrey Show.” There will be discussions of animal training and of pet nutrition and care, and pets will be available for adoption. The program will be included with the $5 general admission (kids under 2 free). 310 N. Main St., Los Angeles, (213) 687-8800.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art is presenting a family tour of the museum Sunday at 2 p.m. See how a scribble of paint, a scrap of metal, an image from television and other materials can be combined to create a work of art. Included with museum admission ($6 for adults; $4 for students 18 and over with ID, and seniors; $1 for children; children under 5 admitted free). 5905 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 857-6000.

The Craft & Folk Art Museum will offer free admission Sunday. Check out its new exhibit, “I Once Was Lost: The Spiritual Found in Folk Art,” a display from the House of Blues Collection. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. 5800 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, (213) 937-5544.

The Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, as part of its “Cats! Wild to Mild” exhibit, will have “Feline Fun Day” Saturday from 11:30 a.m. to 3:30 p.m. Kids can create cat toys and cat masks, help color an “If I Was a Cat” mural and take part in a scavenger hunt. And there will be cat adoptions. From 1:45 to 2, the Exotic Feline Breeding Compound will display a rare fishing cat with webbed paws, normally found only in India and China. Free. 900 Exposition Blvd. in Exposition Park, Los Angeles, (213) 763-3466.

The Museum of Contemporary Art hosts its annual family day Sunday from 1 to 4 p.m. There will be student-led discussions of current exhibitions, an art-making workshop and refreshments. Free, but reservations are required. 250 S. Grand Ave., Los Angeles, (213) 626-6222 (for reservations: [213] 621-1712).

The Huntington Library, Art Collections and Botanical Gardens will have its 23th annual one-day-only plant sale Sunday. Thousands of rare and exotic plants will be available at this, the mother of all plant sales for amateur gardeners and serious collectors alike. Garden books also will be on sale. Admission to the sale also includes entrance to the 150-acre gardens and all museum exhibits: $7.50 for adults; $6 for seniors; $4 for students and children 12 and over; free for children under 12. The ticket window opens at 9 a.m.; gates to the sale area open at 10. 1151 Oxford Road, San Marino, (818) 405-2100.

The Skirball Center will present an Israeli Festival Sunday from noon to 5 p.m. with special family tours of Israeli archeological finds in the Discovery Center, and an outdoor dig continuing all day. A screening of “Exodus 1947,” starting at 3:30, will show the efforts of American citizens to transport holocaust survivors to Palestine in 1947. The festival and screening are included with regular admission ($7 general; $5 for seniors; members and children under 12 get in free). 2701 N. Sepulveda Blvd., Los Angeles, (310) 440-4500.

Museums of the Arroyo. Five museums along the historic Arroyo Seco in Highland Park and Pasadena will offer free admission, tours and special programs Sunday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Sunday and a free shuttle bus between them. The museums are:

* The Gamble House, an architectural landmark built in 1908 and practically unaltered since then, is one of the most complete and well-preserved examples of work by two renowned architects from Pasadena, Charles and Henry Greene of the Arts and Crafts movement. 4 Westmoreland Place, Pasadena, (818) 793-3334.

* The Heritage Square Museum is actually eight separate buildings that showcase L.A.’s Victorian past. Among the buildings in the park-like setting are the outstanding Queen Anne Eastlake House, the middle-class home of a woodcarver, an octagon house, a church, and a train depot. 3800 Homer St., Los Angeles, (818) 449-0193.

* The Pasadena Historical Museum is a museum and a research library focusing on the history of Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley. Included is the 1905 Beaux Arts Fenyes Mansion, one of the few remaining homes on Pasadena’s former “Millionaire’s Row”; it still contains the original furnishings and art collection. 470 Walnut St., Pasadena, (818) 577-1660.

* The Southwest Museum houses one of the country’s most significant collections of Native American art and artifacts. Permanent exhibits focus on the native peoples of California, the Southwest, the Great Plains and the Pacific Northwest Coast. In the ethnobotanical garden, visitors can learn about California’s indigenous plants and how they were used by Native Americans. 234 Museum Drive, Los Angeles, (213) 221-2164.

* The Lummis Home is a turn-of-the-century house built over a 12-year period with stones from the arroyo. In its time, the house and its eccentric builder--Charles Lummis, founder of the Southwest Museum and the first city editor of the Los Angeles Times--attracted artists, writers and statesmen from all over the world. 200 East Avenue 43, Los Angeles, (213) 222-0546.