Silverwood Park - Christa - residency - 5 hours
Highpoint Center for Printmaking - Tyler Green - volunteer - 5 hours
Minneapolis Institute of Art - residency - Elisabeth Callihan - 6 hours
A busy, busy week! There were lots of special events at all my locations. First up… Silverwood.
Make and Mingle is a 21+ event that happens four times a year (for each equinox) at Silverwood. I’ve been hearing about it since I started there. The theme for spring was Birds. It was a drawing based event. I was running the blind contour drawing station. People were encouraged to come over as they wanted and do a blind contour drawing of a selection of taxidermied birds. We had a loon, coot, duck, heron, owl, and pheasant. Generally, people came over to look at the birds and from there I invited them to draw. Most immediately agreed, when some were hesitant, I showed examples of my blind contour drawings of the birds show it wasn’t about a beautiful finished realistic drawing. A few participants told me they had done blind contour before with their class as they were a teacher. It was a really fun event. There were many other stations. I stuck with blind contour all night and then assisted with take down. It was really fun to see adults with their friends engaging with art in a causal way. They were having fun and it really showed.
Highpoint had Free Ink Day this weekend and needed extra hands. I miss being in a printshop, so I jumped at the chance and was there all day. I was mostly just support during the event. People of all ages were making water soluble monotypes. My two main roles were assisting with the flow of the press line which included helping people prepare their plates for printing and helping clean finished plates to be used by other participants. It was a really fun day with about 200 participants. The event at Highpoint really reminded me of how much I love interacting with people and keeping busy. I really enjoy the constantly flow of new faces. I don’t mind repeating the same instructions 100 times. Being that facilitator is something I’ve had a lot of experience doing. I’m used to (and enjoy) being adaptable, anticipating needs and searching for areas of confusion to fix. Being able to exercise that this weekend was really great.
Sunday I was at the MIA during their Rock the Cradle event. There are activities for kids and families all throughout the museum. I was in the studios, assisting with the painting activity there. We were using tempera paints so the tables were covered with brown paper. Easels with clips were set up as were cups with water and brushes. Aprons were available. A good lesson in materials mattering - we used sheet of canvas from canvas pads. Kids and adults were both so excited to be painting on real canvas, not just paper. As one kid put it “Canvas! Like the artists in the museum!” The activity was enjoyed by all. For most of the day I rotated around the studios, asking kids about their paintings, replacing dirty water, cleaning paint palettes. I spent some time at the introduction table, welcoming people, explaining the activity, and helping get materials. The studio manager was adamant about only one canvas per person which meant I had the unhappy task of telling some children that they could only make one painting. There were a lot of kids that came in, made a painting and were done but some really loved it and you could tell wanted to sit all day and paint. Toward the end of the day two of the other assistants were tearing canvas sheets out of the pads for another activity a different day in the studios. This made me uncomfortable to telling kids ‘no ‘ to another sheet because they could see the stack growing.
All in all a very eventful week.
Tuesday brings another Silverwood day!
My teaching will be at Silverwood with the Green Beans and Doodlebugs programs at the end of April. Those programs both begin next week. I’m so excited to be with all the little kiddos at the park!