We’ve been busy in Star Studio during Andy Warhol Enterprises…then again, it might be more accurate to say that our visitors have been busy. Star Studio is a space designed to encourage visitors of all ages  to participate in hands-on exploration of works of art on display at the IMA.  Star Studio projects encourage visitors to think about art by making art of their own, by creating in dialogue with the work on display.  Andy Warhol Enterprises has definitely sparked quite a few of those creative conversations in Star Studio.  We’ve divided the activities in Star between making art and writing about the intersection between art and commerce.

Visitors who are willing to leave with a little crayon under their fingernails can make a series of rubbings inspired by Warhol’s silkscreen prints.  The images for the rubbing plates come from one of Warhol’s favorite subjects – the one dollar bill.  We select a few of each day’s rubbings to add to our wall of visitor created artwork.  Visitors who want to try their hands at another way of transforming everyday images into artwork can trace projected clippings from newspaper ads.

It seems like most people have something to say about Andy Warhol, and about what role money and self-promotion ought to play in the life of an artist.  We’ve printed a series of questions suggested by the exhibition on “dollar bills,” where visitors can write a response (and sometimes pose a question of their own).  We’re posting those responses in Star Studio, and creating a kind of slow motion conversation about the intersection of art and business.  If you are in the area before Andy Warhol Enterprises closes on January 2nd,  (and if you haven’t  seen the show, you really should add a trip to the IMA to your holiday to-do list) stop by Star Studio, and add your voice to the conversation.

In the years since Star Studio opened, countless visitors have declined the invitation to make something in the drop-in studio by saying “Oh no, I’m not creative.” Huh. I’ve never had a child say that, though. Something happens between childhood and adulthood that prompts many of us to draw a line between who we are and who we think we aren’t. Maybe children are just braver, less worried about making a mistake. In the end, kids are just more open to the concept that making art is fun. I think many adults (and I’m including many adults who identify themselves as artists, myself included) sometimes forget that simple idea: it is fun to make things. It is satisfying to create, even if the thing you are creating is seemingly trivial, or unaccomplished, or ugly, or merely pretty.

I have the good fortune to see children making art often – in Star Studio, in the studio classes offered here at the museum, and at home, where my own children put markers, crayons, and Play-Doh to nearly daily use. Looking up from a work in progress, my son, who is not quite four years old, will say to me “Y’know, Dad, sometimes you’ve got to just check the theory at the door to the studio and just let the paint fly. Let someone else decide if that mark is genuinely felt or merely a self-conscious echo of a mythologized time and place you never knew. It’s just paint, man. Lose the paralyzing introspection and just make the work. Now grab me a chocolate milk.” I’m summarizing, but you get the idea. The point I’m trying to make is that we were all creative as kids, and we all still are…it’s a basic element of being human. Making art is one way to affirm that. We made stuff when we were kids because it was fun to do, and it still is, if we let it be. So, grab your Play-Doh, your sippy cup, and get to work.