Art Lab at the Mulvane

My graduate class this semester- Art Methods for Young Children- has required me to conduct some interviews with educators using art centers to promote creativity. My first interview was with the Pre-K teachers at one of my schools and the second was at the Judith Lennox Sabitini Art Lab on Washburn University's campus in Topeka, KS. I LOVE the Art Lab. If you're ever in NE Kansas and have some free time, you should definitely stop in for a visit! I took pictures last summer on a trip with my son, intending to write about it here but never got around to it. I figured since I already had to write up my interview for my class, I might as well post it here, too!

            For my second interview about educators using art centers, I broke out of the traditional school setting and instead visited the Judith Lennox Sabitini Art Lab in the basement of the Mulvane Art Museum at Washburn University. The Art Lab is totally free and open to the public, serving 20,000 visitors of all ages and abilities each year. The Art Lab’s goal of making art experiences available to everyone and the fact that it’s what my dream classroom would look like, were factors in my decision to explore deeper with an interview.

            I was able to interview Kandis Barker, Education Curator, about the educational programs at the Mulvane and how centers are used in the Art Lab. I began by asking Kandis to fill me in on the history of the Art Lab. Kandis told me that the Mulvane Art Museum underwent an extensive renovation, reopening in 2006. The museum staff all felt that they needed to include some hands-on opportunities to support the idea of learning through “viewing and doing”. Kandis and a team of colleagues visited several renowned children’s art centers including the Frist Center for the Visual Arts in Nashville, Tennessee and the Heard Museum in Phoenix. Visiting other institutions gave them ideas for division of space and what concepts were most important so that they could come back and implement their ideas. Kandis said, “We’re trying to support the idea that we learn by both viewing and doing. We’re supporting arts knowledge that way” (K. Barker, personal communication, February 15, 2012).

            The Art Lab is meant to complement and extend the learning from viewing exhibits in the galleries on the main and upper floors of the museum to give a broader understanding of the basics of art. Visitors can enjoy the Art Lab as part of a scheduled group or by just dropping in as a family. A scheduled group would first have an inquiry-based docent-led tour of the Mulvane’s galleries before going downstairs to the Art Lab. When entering the Art Lab, visitors are greeted with an information desk, and close by, a few large tables for the more structured lesson. In addition to the Education Curator and Assistant Education Curator, the Mulvane also employs an Art Lab Specialist, certified to teach K-12 Visual Arts. When I entered the Art Lab, the specialist was explaining the structured activity to a family just like she would to a larger group. Kandis explained that the lesson is based on

...what the person has just viewed in the galleries. They get a technique, they get a big idea, they understand art is a form of communication, how they can do it, why people do it, why it matters to do it at all, and then the exploration centers create a broader understanding. So we have something very focused on the exhibition, but then they’re getting the broader understanding that is equally as significant. (K. Barker, personal communication, February 15, 2012)

            Beyond the tables for the lesson, there are eleven exploration centers including self-portraits, magnetic mosaics, weaving, color, cave art, printmaking, sculpture, watercolor painting, light and shadow, contour drawing, and Legos. Each center has a description and a sign with information about history, techniques, and art curriculum. The exploration centers were designed to be visitor-centered and directed. The materials and directions, are visible and easily accessible. I want to give you a brief description of each center because I think they have come up with some great ideas.

 The self-portrait center has examples in a variety of styles, a regular mirror, and the very popular concave and convex mirrors.

The mosaic center is made from a large magnetic sheet hung on the wall and a case full of brightly colored and patterned magnetic shapes that can be arranged on the wall and reused.

The weaving station has a large loom and weft materials such as rope and neckties that can be used over and over.

The color center is the most easily used by the youngest visitors- it has a light table sitting low to the ground with lots of shapes and toys to be used with the table.

 The cave art center has a textured concrete wall built to create the feeling of walking through a cave. The concrete and walls covered with cardboard are there for visitors to draw on with sidewalk chalk. The walls are wiped down periodically and the cardboard can just be changed out when it can no longer be cleaned.

The printmaking station has foam that can be drawn into and printed with markers and damp paper.

 The sculpture station has pieces of matboard scraps that can be attached for small three-dimensional work and other low cost materials. When I visited last week, there was a small group of children making puppets out of paper bags.

The watercolor center has crayons and texture plates to extend the exploration.

The light and shadow center has repositionable spotlights and forms that the artists can manipulate before drawing.

The contour drawing center is made of standing plexiglass and dry erase markers. Visitors can have a friend stand on the other side of the wall and trace them to learn about line contour drawing.

The Lego center has large trays of Lego building blocks. Visitors can make Lego sculptures and leave them intact for display when they are finished.

            I asked Kandis about the curriculum used in the centers and how the centers are evaluated. Kandis said that the programming was designed by herself and Jane Hanny, Assistant Education Curator, and that they are constantly evaluating the centers. The Art Lab staff considers the centers’ popularity, practicality, and payout. Kandis said the most popular centers are painting and those that allow visitors to do things they don’t typically get to do- like drawing on walls. I asked about an Installation Art center I remembered from a couple years ago. She said that the center was good as a new experience, but it was very labor-intensive to run. “We learn from our mistakes! We look carefully about every year to see what’s been really popular... since the installation station was problematic and taking up a lot of space, we took it down and added more watercolors” (K. Barker, personal communication, February 15, 2012).

             Some permanent exploration centers have grown out of the structured lesson. In summer 2011, the Mulvane hosted an exhibit called “Art of the Brick”, which included numerous sculptures by artist Nathan Sawaya all made of Legos. Building with Legos must have been popular enough as a lesson that they made it into an Exploration Center at the conclusion of the exhibit.

            Coming from a teaching situation with a very limited budget, I had planned to ask Kandis about fuding for supplies. However, after looking more closely at the centers, I realized that they wouldn’t need to come up with much money for supplies. A few stations have make and take projects- like painting, drawing, printmaking- but they would just require basic supplies. The sculpture station also allows visitors to make and take something, but the supplies there are mostly donated scraps. All of the other stations have mostly reusable materials.

        I am really glad that I had the opportunity to learn more about another use of activity centers through my interview at the Art Lab. It was great to see art education happening outside of a traditional school setting. Almost every time I’ve been to the Art Lab, I’ve run into one of my school families. I enjoy seeing the students so excited about art, and we always agree that we wish art could be more like that at school. While I don’t have the ability to totally transform my program, I will see how I can take some of the ideas back to school.

I also found these really cool bottle cap murals in the hallway! The sign says 

CAPturing Kansas
Bottle cap mural project created by Michelle Stitzlein and Art Students from Sean O'Callaghan's seventh and eighth grade classes at Eisenhower Middle School (USD 501) Topeka, KS March 7-10, 2012

CAPturing Kansas- Bottle cap mural at the Art Lab created by Michelle Stitzlein and Eisenhower Middle School Art students

Bottle cap mural at the Art Lab created by Michelle Stitzlein and Eisenhower Middle School Art students

Paint Chip Game

Paint chips are all over Pinterest! I've seen all sorts of projects using them and while I would feel guilty taking enough from the store for 100+ students to use, I didn't feel too bad taking just one of each primary, secondary, and neutral color.  (I also took an extra black to help illustrate value.) I laminated the samples, cut each strip apart, and put them in a pencil case with the following directions to be used during an 8 minute rotation.

1. Sort the rectangles by color (al the reds together, all the blues together, etc.)

2. Put the colors in order of the color wheel (red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple)

3. By yourself, pick a pile of one color, like all the oranges. Put the rectangles in order from dark to light.

4. With extra time, invent your own game to play with them!

In the photo above, the directions are just taped to the bottom. I have since laminated the directions and added another piece of laminated paper with some vocabulary on it. Since I just had groups working on this for about 8 minutes, it was a good activity. The students were proud when they accomplished 1-3 and got pretty creative inventing their own games with #4. One group invented a game that was kind of like Go Fish but with colors and I'm sure there were several other good ideas. 

This was a good way for students to work together to play with color and value and use their imagination and creativity to invent a game.

Cardboard Construction and Water Painting

I'm sure we've all read a lot about using stations or centers in the Art room.  I don't use them regularly, but I do utilize them at least a few times a year.  I used stations last week with some of my 3rd grade students.  I wanted the students to type artist statements for their first projects into Artsonia so while one student at a time was doing that, the others were rotating to different stations.  I wanted to come up with stations that did not involve drawing, just for something different.  One, geometric shape tile pictures, I had used before but I tried a couple new things.  I had 4 stations total and the groups rotated to each during the class period.  They ended up with about 6-7 minutes at each station.

1. Water painting on the chalkboard!  I read about letting Kinders paint with water on sidewalks at the beginning of the school year and that idea stuck with me. (I first read about it on B Art Z but I think the original idea came from Hands Head n Heart)  One day I was trying to explain to some students how to turn their brush to cover a wider area and it popped into my head to show them with water on the chalkboard.  I guess this is one time I prefer it to a whiteboard.  For this rotation, I just put styrofoam cups with a little bit of water in them and big brushes on the chalkboard tray and let the students paint lines with water.  I didn't tell them what to paint, just let them explore and be amazed at their temporary paintings.  It worked pretty well besides when a couple students decided to use the brushes to fling water instead of "painting" with it.  We just wiped with paper towels to speed dry time for the next group.

2. Building with recycled materials.  This was so obvious that I can't believe I never did it before!  I save all my paper towel tubes.  I like to use recycled materials for projects, I just have to have over 100 of anything before I have enough for each student to do a lesson.  I pulled out some paper towel tubes, cardboard pieces, plastic trays that someone gave me, and the little "ladders" I saved from old watercolor trays.  I told the students when they were at that table, they just had to build something from the materials working together with their group.  I did not set a specific challenge.  Some used it to create architectural designs, some decided to see how tall of a tower they could build.  I did put a stop to the tall tower thing temporarily when students started to climb on top of the tables to reach higher.  Honestly, they were being careful and I think it would have been pretty safe (my brother and I were always doing stuff like that when we were younger) but I figured since we were at school and I don't want to get in trouble, they could only build towers as tall as they could reach from the floor.  It was cool to see them learn about balance and figure out how to make the structures more sturdy.  The students asked when they could do it again!  There was definitely lots of critical thinking and problem solving happening!

I found a big tub of blocks so one other station was individual building.  This student wanted me to take a picture of her tower, too.

I have plans for other non-drawing (not that I don't love drawing) stations but I have yet to test them out.  I promise to share the results after I do test them with students.