Children are immersive. When they color a picture, for example, only the most disciplined will keep their colors inside the lines. The truly passionate artist will extend their colors to the edge of the page, onto the table, and all over their hands and arms. In everything they do, children look to be active participants; experiencing the artistic process in the most intuitive way possible.

Now imagine one of those little artists, full of their own passion, curiosity, and creativity, and taking them to the IMA. Everywhere they look their eyes land on items they want to investigate further. The questions start flowing, “How did the painter make those colors?” “What’s that made of?” “How did the artist put all of those pieces together?”

You would like to help, to encourage discovery, but despite your best intentions, another phrase slips from your mouth instead: “Don’t touch.”

Don’t touch. That phrase may be one of the quickest ways to deter an inquisitive mind. Dejected, your little one may spend the rest of the visit silently viewing the art on display, wishing there was something they could do to connect to the art without damaging it. To not only see, but to engage with art on a level that speaks to their imagination.

For every budding creative out there, for every art detective, and for every child who desires to experience art on their terms, the IMA would like to offer our inaugural Art Packs program.

Launching this summer, the Art Packs program will be a way for children visiting the IMA to experience works of art through structured activities that enable them to create for themselves while priceless art is preserved. Every Art Pack will contain materials centered on a theme such as line, shape, color, or pattern. All the items in each Pack will work with the theme to generate activities that correspond to particular objects in the IMA’s collection.

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Filed under: Audience Engagement, Education, Guest Bloggers

While you would not believe it if you had not lived it, the temperature Tuesday night was 60 degrees warmer than the temperature Thursday night. And while I am as prone as anyone to gasp in horror at that fact, there is no ignoring those sorts of temperature swings are not out of realm of possibility in Indiana, even prior to serious climate change.

One kinda sorta gets used to it. In a way. In that holy-crap-good-god-almighty-what-the-hell-is-going-on sort of way. Kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

Admittedly it is only the first day of February but many of our early blooming plants are ready to strut their stuff when we get a couple warm days this time of year. Despite single digits not so long ago, as soon as we had that warmer weather at the beginning of the week the somewhat precocious members of our garden displays were bursting forth with the fervor of spring. The early shift in the gardens has had enough of a cooling period to initiate the launch sequence for flowering.

Flowers in January. Kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

And I know I have said this before in blogs in previous years but each year when these early plants start blooming? I swear. It’s like the very first time I have ever seen them. It’s like it IS the first time I have ever seen them. Despite the fact that I know where to go look for them because some of them I have been visiting for twenty years. It’s just so damn exciting to see them and know winter is going to end (although winters lately are not that much to recover from round here). That’s beside the point. The point is it is so damn wonderful that it kinda makes me want to scream and shout.

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Filed under: Audience Engagement, Horticulture

Design rendering for Star Studio.

I imagine the next week will feel very much like the countdown for a NASA space shuttle mission.  “T-7 days and counting.   Activate all personnel.  Review discussed layout.  Load in tables, chairs, and art supplies.  Backup and review tech systems.  Complete preliminary security and housekeeping inspections.  T-0.  Unlock the doors.”  Admittedly, this is both exciting and terrifying.  After nearly a year of planning and preparation, Star Studio will reopen to the public on Tuesday, January 15, 2013 at 11 am sharp with a very different vibe.

And so the story goes, on a cloudy day in March, a team of museum educators drafted a dreamy vision statement based on results gleaned from the 2012 IMA Family Study: “Inspired by the IMA’s collection, its resources, and related aspects of the visual arts, programs and activities in Star Studio encourage families to imagine, explore, create, share, and collaborate with art in new ways.”  We asked both members and non-members to test activities based on these five overarching themes during a set of focus groups.

In each section, adults are provided with the tools to teach fundamental art concepts such as color, line, shape, and texture, to children under the age of twelve in fun and innovative ways.  In the first section, Imagine, visitors are invited to think creatively about the art-making process.  Rules, instructions, and templates are absent.  Visitors are encouraged to create art from a set of traditional and non-traditional media, including paint, drawing materials, and clay, but also twist ties, bubble wrap, and packing peanuts.  The second section, Explore, includes a tactile table designed to stimulate the senses, promote creativity, and assist in the development of fine motor skills.  For the third experience, visitors are invited to Create.  They can use the iPad Free Draw Station to create their own works of art. Upon completion, visitors may email their drawings to themselves, friends, and family.  Another activity in this section invites young visitors to engage in imaginary play. By donning a construction hat and pretending to be construction workers kids help build R. Indiana City using an assortment of building blocks.  Share allows visitors to write or draw responses to a phrase on a large-scale chalkboard wall.  Additionally, Share includes an interactive photo booth, giving visitors the opportunity to capture images of the works they created, which are also projected on a wall.  And lastly, Collaborate encourages participants to socialize with other patrons by working together on a community art project.

Bonus!  A series of facilitated programs are now offered in the classroom on Wednesdays and weekends. For more information, please check out our calendar.

Filed under: Audience Engagement, Education

Robert Brown, “Concession Stand,” posted on the My Snapshot website.

When I look at “Concession Stand” by Robert Brown I am reminded of artist John Baldessari’s commentary about one of his favorite found photographs. He was mesmerized about a particular film still image he had bought because of what it didn’t show him, and thus what it left open to interpretation. We are seduced by several different factors in photographs, but one often overlooked by the amateur and sometimes even the professional is what is left out. One of my old photography professors has a farm in Vermont. He used to joke with us that he practiced reductive farming, only choosing what plants to remove and leaving the rest. He may not be a very good farmer but photography, especially the kind where one goes around with a camera hunting for a good image, is just this sort of reductive process.

For Brown’s image we are given a title and a very open-ended scene. We see the silhouette of a woman with her hat off, raised to one side, interrupting a distant view of some indiscriminate low lying building. There is just enough detail in the shadows of the foreground to see evidence of some candy bars, which I latch onto because it makes the title of the image ring true. Sometimes not enough context can cause us to lose interest, to throw up our hands and say, “and…” But this image saves itself from that fate because it sets up just enough of a narrative that our imagination (or at least mine) is kicked into gear. There are lots of questions streaming though my mind: Is it a woman? Why does she have her hat raised just so? And where are we? Am I inside the stand looking out or outside looking in? And that view is so bleak, yet intense. It could be any non-descript location, but the vagueness of the scene is disorienting and it makes me feel like this moment was captured just before something consequential was about to happen. It’s akin to a cinematic ploy where everything seems too ordinary and hum drum, so the tension in you rises because you know something will have to happen soon. This type of internal visual game (if you will) captured my interest, and that of course is the goal for all of us lens-based artists.

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Filed under: Art, Audience Engagement