Bravo Lucy Walker and Vik Muniz for Waste Land

Thank you Lucy Walker and Vic Muniz for your beautiful film, Waste Land, illustrating how art can transform peoples’ lives.  You deserve the Oscar tonight for Best Documentary Feature. Awesome soundtrack by Moby, too.

This week's "Collaborations" piece was created by Armand Rusillon and his daughter

CultureChild: Parent-child art collaboration entitled, "Kitchen Door."

Passing time on a white, wintry morning.

Introducing "Collaborations"

CultureChild: "The Red Studio" by Henri Matisse

It dawned on me during my research for this blog that among the benefits of connecting children to painting, sculpture, dance, music, photography, storytelling, design, theater and art at large, the most wonderful benefit of all is the deepening of our connection to our children through art that we experience together.

Every time I see my daughter joyfully creating “masterpieces” on her plastic foldaway picnic table, her “Red Studio,” as we’ve dubbed it, I am pleasantly reminded of the morning we spent with other families at MoMA, sprawled underneath Henri Matisse’s celebrated painting “The Red Studio,” drawing fanciful depictions of our favorite places.

With this fond memory in mind, I am happy to introduce “Collaborations,” an ongoing series in my blog showcasing beautiful collaborations between artists (or art lovers) and their children. 

A Parent's Struggle With a Child's iPad Addiction per David Pogue

Great post today from David Pogue: A Parent’s Struggle With a Child’s iPad Addiction

I‘m with David Pogue regarding “Moderation in all things.”  However, at 6:45 a.m. on a Saturday, I’m with Oscar Wilde, “Everything in moderation, including moderation.”   On weekends, I gladly hand over my iPad to my 7-year-old in exchange for an extra hour of sleep.

Interview with Megan Lucas, Freelance Museum Educator

CultureChild: Teaching Children About Art

Sunday, I chatted with Megan Lucas, a freelance educator for the Family Programs at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA), during a visit with my daughter to the museum’s Material Lab.  Here are a few excerpts from our conversation.

CultureChild:  Why is it important to teach children about art?

Megan:  Teaching children about art helps them realize things about themselves, their surroundings and others. I find that children develop their own lenses by observing how artists use theirs. By observing the artwork of others, children can reflect on themselves and their surroundings. Through our Family Programs, family members can come to these realizations collectively.

In MoMA’s Family Art Workshop for Picasso: Guitars 1912-1914, we help children understand Picasso’s lens by asking them to think about an everyday object that has personal significance and what the object represents to them.   To Picasso, the guitars in his work symbolize Spain and his love of music.   

CultureChild: Do you know of any research that connects children learning about art to their personal development?

Megan:  The Guggenheim Museum’s Learning Through Art program (LTA) conducted and published research linking art education to the development of literacy and critical thinking skills.  The Guggenheim Museum recently published another study about how observation and art-making enhance problem-solving skills.

CultureChild: In addition to the MoMA’s Family Art Workshops, how can parents help children engage with art?

Internet and Technology in Schools: Why We Shouldn’t Pull the Plug

CultureChild: Technology and School

Most parents of school-aged kids are aware of a current debate taking place on- and off-line, regarding the use of computer technology and the Internet at school.  During the past week, there has been a lot of heated comments on the The Huffington Post as a result of Laurie David and Susan Stiffelman’s recent post, “Technology and Schools: Should We Add More or Pull the Plug?”

I believe in teaching children in school and at home the importance of balancing technology in their lives and how to use the Internet responsibly, in tandem with a lot of teacher and parent supervision.  I’ve seen technology offer my daughter educational experiences that wouldn’t have been as dynamic for her otherwise. 

Google Art Project: Touring the Tate between Science and Recess

Thanks to Google’s new website, Google Art Project, students (and anyone with Internet access) can visit some of the world’s greatest art museums without leaving the classroom—a brilliant example of using technology to connect and engage millions with art. The site uses Google Street View to offer virtual tours of 17 museums, including the Tate Britain in London, Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, The Metropolitan Museum of Art and MoMA in New York and Uffizi Gallery in Florence.

What stirs your creative soul?

While walking through the MoMA’s painting and sculptural galleries is a visceral experience for me, it’s not so much for my seven-year-old—especially when she has an entirely different idea of how we should be spending a Saturday morning. 

 

A source of inspiration for my effort to nurture my child’s creative development was seeing Julie Taymor speak about her artistic process at the Rubin Museum of Art’s 2008 Brainwave Festival.  For those who aren’t familiar with her, Julie Taymor is a visionary director of film (Frida, Across the Universe) theater (The Lion King, Spiderman) and opera (The Magic Flute), lauded for her kaleidoscopic fusion of music, word and image.  The Brainwave Festival, now in its sixth year, pairs prominent scientists with equally important artists and educators.  I attended a discussion in which Julie Taymor discussed her creative process with neuroscientists Sandra Aamodt, Ph.D., and Sam Wang, Ph.D., authors of the book, Welcome to Your Brain.