Visiting Objectivity Exhibit at
the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia by Savvy Mom Ruth Paget
For
my birthday, I asked if we could go to the Objectivity exhibit at the
Contemporary Art Center of Virginia. I
wrote a review of the exhibit that I put in our family journal:
Fostering Love for Art:
A Family Pursuit
Stimulating
your child’s creativity will provide them with a lifelong source of enjoyment
and relaxation.
While
many parents provide their children with all the materials to let them make
projects, they rarely take them to art exhibits or museums to see how others
have put their talents and various media to use.
After
taking my young daughter to museums and exhibits, I have developed a few
activities that can make viewing art a fun and challenging experience.
Visiting
the Contemporary Art Center of Virginia’s current show Objectivity:
International Objects of Subjectivity offers families a great opportunity to
create scavenger hunts for museum visits, for example.
Before
visiting an exhibit, try to set the stage for your outing. Find a book on contemporary art from the
library and look at it with your children.
You
may want to purchase art books for children as well based on what you see at
the library or bookstore. I purchased
Art Forms by Duane Preble at a used book sale for the purpose of discussing contemporary
art. When I planned visits to
contemporary art exhibits with my daughter, I would look over this book with
her.
When
I first started taking my daughter to museums, I had a mental checklist of
things to look for to keep her interested in the artwork. I would ask her questions like:
-Do
you see any angels?
-Do
you see any mothers?
-Do
you see any babies?
For
specific exhibits, I try to find out what kinds of items will be on display, so
I can make a scavenger hunt list.
Scavenger
hunt items for the Objectivity exhibit included:
-a
skeleton
-books
-pillow
-baby
cradle
-garbage
cans
-spider
-feathers
-butterflies
-canoe
-spiral
staircase
-tires
-Chinese
characters
As
your child locates these items, you can read the labels to find out what
country the artist is from and help your child build their vocabulary in the
process. Scavenger hunts are also a way
to teach your child to become observant.
The
unconventional subject matter and a variety of media in this show would pique
interest in many children. A pail of
fingers and a four-sided basketball hoop were among my daughter’s favorite
works at the Objectivity exhibit.
My
entire family liked Ik-Joong Kung’s pagoda-like structure called English Garden
decorated with three-inch tiles and topped off with cassette players.
The
idea for tiles came to Kung when he was commuting between the Pratt Institute
and his jobs at a Korean grocery store and a flea market.
Kung
had no time for studio work, but could easily fit the tiles in his pocket and
work on them while he was commuting. The
tiles record his impressions of his life as a foreigner in New York.
Inspired
by Kung’s work, the Center for Contemporary Art provides its visitors with the
opportunity to purchase a tile for fifty cents to decorate and make part of a
mosaic shown in the exhibit.
On
the way home from an exhibit, talk about art projects that would be fun to do
with your child. Some easy art projects
include:
-make
a collage from photos cut from a catalog
-fill
a shoebox with everyday objects to make a time capsule for future
generations. (Inspired by the Monica
Exhibit from Brazil at the Children’s Museum in Madison, Wisconsin.)
-use
pictures drawn on copy paper to “tile” a door
-create
sculpture using boxes paper bags and other items such as cupcake papers,
photographs, and string
Make
sure to display your children’s artwork and make labels for it to hang up in
their bedroom.
A
good reference book for children’s art projects is Creative Art for the
Developing Child: A Teacher’s Handbook
for Early Childhood Education by Clare Cherry
By
Ruth Pennington Paget, author of Eating Soup with Chopsticks and Marrying France
Click here for: Ruth Paget's Amazon Books
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