Taking the Kids: Exploring an art museum in a new way
Grab a backpack, but not just any backpack. These backpacks at the Denver Art Museum (www.denverartmuseum.org) are designed to inspire kids to become lifelong art lovers -- and art museum visitors.
You can Live Like a Chinese Scholar in one exhibit or create an American Indian horse mask in another. Become a detective, as you make your way through the furniture gallery.
Did I mention these backpacks are yours to borrow during your visit? That they're designed for different age groups, including preschoolers? If you are short on time, the kids can grab an Art Tube with one simple activity, like decorating special eyeglasses to enhance your viewing pleasure. This might explain why on weekends and during school breaks one in four visitors to this museum are kids. And, given Denver's large Hispanic population, every activity is bilingual.
You'll also find hands-on family activities throughout the museum. For younger kids, there is a dress-up area where they can try on Chinese robes and make their own paper robe.
In the museum's famous Textile Art Collection, which includes everything from pre-Columbian textiles, contemporary works of art in fiber and quilts, there is a "thread studio" where kids can try their hand-weaving and two kid-sized embroidery tables where they can create a quilt pattern out of small shapes or weave on a giant loom.
Kids can create their own fruit and vegetable faces on magnetic boards with small magnetic strawberries, red peppers, bananas, squash, pears, lemons and more in the European Gallery, which features the fanciful "Fruit Faces" of 16th-century artist Giuseppe Arcimboldo.
"I like that you can do your own stuff at this museum, not just look at things," said 10-year-old Roisin Mooney, visiting with her mom, Theresa.
That's the idea, of course. And these days you'll find plenty of activities to engage kids and the adults who accompany them to art museums across the country:
-- The San Diego Museum of Art (www.sdmart.org) offers a downloadable activity book/guide to the collection, which introduces the family program mascot, ARTie. Every Sunday afternoon, there are gallery mystery games and drop-in, hands-on activities.
-- Kids under 14 are always free at the Art Institute of Chicago.(www.artic.edu). Families love the Artist's Studio at the Ryan Education Center where they can drop in and create an art project -- themed to something in the vast museum's collection -- to take home. There are also special Artist's Studio programs offered every weekend.
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