First Visit to an Art Museum, Part 1

Posted: August 27, 2012 | Author: Jena | Filed under: Artsy Fartsy, Field Trip | Leave a comment »

We brave our first visit to an art museum, a to do item on our summer wish list. On a Sunday, Big K is at work, mama and her boys set off to check out some art, as Big K would say, “doin’ our Artsy Fartsy stuff.” We stay for an hour, a perfect amount of time, it seems.

As we drive there, we discuss what we might see, and we think about museum etiquette.

No Running,
Soft Voices,
No Touching.
These rules remind the kids of the library and they keep talking about our visit to the library.

We follow a map of the museum, and I take their lead.

The first impressive art piece we come across is The Wall at WAM.
You catch a glimpse of the mural as you walk down a hallway and BAM, the room opens up,
balconies inviting you to take in the whole airy view.
Bright orange background, black marks covering the walls, brightened by natural light.
The kids’ eyes get wide, they point, they say, “WOW.”

Me: “How do you think this was made?”
Little J: “Ladders and paint.”

I read the sign, paired with the piece, out loud to the boys.
“Charline von Heyl…drive towards abstraction…desire to invent something that cannot be named and that challenges the eye in unexpected ways…imaginative, experimental…extreme in her use of vivid colors…excel at creating paintings with a sense of play between defined and indeterminate forms, open ended drawing…elements that reinforce a composition that ingeniously travels back and forth across the wall.”

“Von Heyl’s inspiration for this commissioned mural, part of the Museum’s Wall at WAM series, was Ellsworth Kelly‘s Orange White, a 1961 abstract painting in the Museum’s collection in the new late 20th Century galleries.”

I try to read the parts of the mural’s description that would make the most sense to the boys, so I don’t lose them in the big words and ideas.
The parts that do make sense, pull them in and remind us of our art work at home…bold colors, lines that travel back and forth, playful, experimental and imaginative.

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