Next time your children are restless, consider a friendly game of “I-spy” ala art — encouraging them to look for art in everyday places, perhaps picking a kid-friendly theme like animal art.
Most of the photos in this post were taken during my everyday travels, but one — featuring the live snake — hails from the ASU Art Museum. Folks who attend the museum’s Nov. 5 “First Saturdays for Families” event can see the anaconda pictured above.
The snake is part of an exhibition titled Juan Downey: The Invisible Architect. “Diablo is pretty magnificent,” says the museum’s Deborah Sussman Susser, “and worth a visit.” How lovely to be on a first name basis with a reptile that’s morphed into an objet d’art.
I’m told that Jean Makin, who curates the museum’s annual family exhibition each summer, has put together another show titled “Just Animals” that runs through December.
“Kids’ view of their world includes furry, feathery and sometimes scaly friends,” says Makin. “They are part of a child’s family.” So seeing prints of fuzzy cats or fluffy dogs brings “instant recognition and comfort.”
“Art,” adds Makin, “can be very complex and unapproachable to a child, but packaged in an image of an animal, it is understandable. Little kids can draw animals from their memory and heart, conveying a sense of what that animal means to them.”
Families who attend the Saturday event will enjoy opportunities other animals can’t experience — like spin-painting and making musical instruments out of recycled materials.
Parents familiar with the Blue Man Group, performing at ASU Gammage through Sunday, know that some humans actually get paid for doing such things on stage.
I suppose that if my kids were little again (they’re all in college now), I’d challenge them to imagine a world where animals had the cameras and humans were the subject of all their photos.
Then I’d turn them loose with art materials so they could play with ideas about what those animals might capture with their cameras. Something tells me we’d make hilarious subjects.
— Lynn
Note: Animals lovers should check out the “National Geographic Live! Speaker Series” at Mesa Arts Center and an upcoming Childsplay production featuring “Lyle the Crocodile.” Click here for information on the Arizona Animal Welfare League, and here for information on the Center for Native and Urban Wildlife at Scottsdale Community College (which offers tours for 4th graders).
Coming up: A loaf of bread
Stage Mom Musings 