IU Art Museum presents spring Family Day

A girl in a yellow shirt and pink-rimmed glasses stared up at Matisse’s cutout, “The Sword Swallower.”

She listened intently as a museum volunteer recounted Matisse’s life in front of a wall covered in similar cutouts. 

As the group moved to the next piece, the girl took one more glance at the man swallowing swords and rushed to catch up with her mother.

About 30 children and parents attended the IU Art Museum Family Day on
Saturday.

Family Day, a museum activity that has happened two to three times a year since 1989, always includes a Spring Celebration.

From 2 to 3:30 p.m., families came to the museum to tour all the exhibitions, including the Matisse special exhibition and the outside campus art collection, before creating their own pieces of artwork.

Curator of Education Ed Maxedon and Coordinator of Curatorial and Educational Programs Ann Fields planned the day’s events with the kids in mind.

“The museum wants to serve the Bloomington community, and not just the IU campus,” Fields said.

At the three crafting tables in the first floor atrium, children created their own cutouts and explored patterns, colors and contoured lines using paper and vinyl
donated for the event.

“The activities today are loosely connected to the Matisse exhibition,” Fields said. “We always have volunteers that know what the activities are, but we like to let the kids just create.”

Vivienne Yee, a 3-year-old from Bloomington, sat at one of the craft tables working on her own piece.

Her paper was covered in red, blue and green strips of paper. A mound of blue tape began to emerge in the bottom left hand corner.

“It’s a ladybug playground,” she said.

Vivienne and her mother, Justina, have attended Family Art days for three years.
Vivienne loves the third floor Africa, Oceanic and Americas exhibits, she said, especially the sculptures. She said she is familiar with them because her mother, a former docent volunteer, used to lead many of the tours.

“They’re really focused on having families work together,” said Justina, a graduating art history masters student. “It’s a lot of intergenerational learning. Parents and kids are learning about art in a very stress-free, very fun
environment.”
As Vivienne finished her cutout piece, a tour was conducted in the Matisse special exhibit.
Helena Walsh, a docent of 15 years and an employee at the Jacobs School of Music, sat on a bench in front of Matisse’s cutouts and told a group of girls about the artist’s life.
The group ooh-ed and ah-ed at the sharp colors and twisted figures in the cutouts before Walsh encouraged them to explore on their own.
After many years of tours, Walsh said she’s seen that events like Family Day are important in involving entire families in art and the lives of artists, especially for kids.
Walsh recounted a tour she did many years ago with a group of fourth graders.
The group was sitting in front of Stuart Davis’s painting “Swinging Landscape” when a young boy said he noticed something sad.
“It’s too bad he ran out of yellow paint,” the boy said in reference to a small streak of yellow at the top of the piece.
Immediately another boy piped up, “No he didn’t, that’s the sun.”
“I have never forgotten that,” Walsh said.
“One kid thinks he ran out of paint, another thinks it’s the sun. Which is it? I have no idea. That is what art is about.”