Looking for some inspiration to get creative this week? I am going to try to share a project idea for all the parents out of ideas!


I teach art history for kids, with the hope that the art making and observing will also lead to a higher sense of citizenship and environmental stewardship. I know it sounds out there, but it works. The more we see and appreciate, the more we want to take care of what is around us. When you regularly make things yourself, you are less willing to destroy even natural creations. I am sharing more of my projects because I know lots of parents out there are exhausted, and they need some cool ideas for activities and learning with their kids of a wide range of ages.


Enjoy the beautiful weather and make art outside with Andy Goldsworthy! Andy Goldworthy is a famous Scottish land artist who makes surreal land art pieces that kids love to look at. You can use his art as an inspiration for your next outdoor adventure. This project has been a hit with classes of all sorts of ages (even adults), and it can help you celebrate that same outdoor space in a new way. It's simple, zero waste, and you don't need to buy anything to do it.



1. Feast your eyes on Goldsworthy's ephemeral land art. We have a retrospective book my kids love rifling through, but you can also do an image search online or check out YouTube. I like this one and this one. Be sure to see his work with leaves and his mind-blowing ice sculptures. If you are looking with kids, just see what they notice!



2. Go out to green space and collect your own "art supplies." Sticks, stones, leaves, flowers- it all works! Encourage finding a variety of sizes, colors, and objects.


3. Find a space to make your artwork. It can be flat, roots of a tree, whatever makes them excited! Talk about how to use the space around them, but don't be surprised if they want their own flat space to use- they mostly look for something kind of like paper!



4. Sort your art supplies. Leave it open ended- sorting by size or color or type are all good methods! If they run out of steam, get involved, but let them start the sorting.



5. Time to arrange! I've seen mandalas, butterflies, monsters, wreaths- it's all good! Let your artist lead. If they need help getting started, make a small shape and ask them to help you add to it.



6. You can keep repeating! Take a picture of a finished product and do another one! If you want to introduce new language, you can talk about ephemerality- what is going to happen to this art when you leave it?



Ok! This was fun to even just write about! It's a great way to combine outside time and creative learning. I love projects that help us see nature in another way. If you try it out, be sure to take a picture and share it with me!

from seattletimes.com

Now that it is getting so nice outside, I have been pining to go check out the Seattle Art Museum Olympic Sculpture Park. Sculpture parks are one of those amazing things, because so often they are free, and it is a great way to check out art (often contemporary art) in a more laid back and fun setting. I know from teaching at the Cantor, if you want to get kids excited about art, helping them move through sculptures outside, where the rules seemingly change, empowers them to connect in ways you won't see outside. Plus, you can experience the environment, the sun, the ocean breeze while you look at art. It's pretty awesome.


A lot of museums now have sculpture parks because beginning in the 60's, a lot of sculpture was made to be semi-monumental, and to be viewed outside. Museums like SFMoMA stage huge shows in public settings (such as Mark di Suvero at Chrissy Field, which just closed last month), and they can make you see a place in a totally new way. Permanent outdoor collections also just feel like an adventure. The best ones combine the beauty of the environment with art objects, so you find them in surprising places.  If you have some travel planned this summer, or you are just looking for something different in your neighborhood, think about what art is living outside. It might make a great place for a summer afternoon. Here are some great ones:


The Fran and Ray Stark Sculpture Garden at the Getty- I don't care how you feel about art, there is no better place to spend a Saturday in Los Angeles than the Getty Museum, which has gorgeous views of the city and a breeze from being up on the hill. They have an interesting collection of art (the shows I have seen there, honestly, were a little lame), but some of the great pieces are actually outside, and I had one of the best days ever with my brother just hanging out there.

Storm King Art Center- In Mountainville, New York (in the gorgeous Hudson River Valley), this park is consistently on the lists of best sculpture parks in the world, with one of the best collections in the United States. I haven't been to this one, but clearly, I need to go. He has a huge collection of David Smith's anchoring the whole thing, with works from everyone from Alexander Calder to Maya Lin (of Memorial fame).

the deCordova Sculpture Park- This is the other staple on every list of great sculpture parks. It is worth going just to see the Lichtensteins, but the grounds and building on it are also some of the most gorgeous you can see. If you are near Lincoln, MA, you should check it out!


Some museums have great sculptures parks right outside their door as well- I am thinking specifically of the Hirschorn in DC,  The Rodin Sculpture Garden at Stanford, outside the Chicago Institute of Art, Mass MOCA, and the DIA Foundation. There are plenty of wonderful outdoor sculptures near museums- you don't even have to go in!

If you want even more outside art, try checking out what monuments and land art might be around you. These works are often more site specific, meaning that they were built specifically for the world around them, so you can really enjoy and think about the relationship between the object and its setting. Plus, some of the most famous ones, like Spiral Jetty by Robert Smithson, are absolute adventures (see: ridiculous) to get to. Here are some Land Art pieces for you avant garde adventurers and monuments for those of you who like more kitchy or historical cultural fun (no judgement- I love both!)

 Double Negative- This is outside Overton, Nevada, and it is an adventure to get to, from all accounts, specifically so you can see a giant hole in the ground. But a freaking brilliant hole, right?

Navajo National Monument/ Montezuma Castle Monument- This is way towards the top of my Bucket List (right next to Monument Valley, God's monument to John Wayne). These historical monuments preserve the most intact cliff dwellings of peoples who lived in Pueblos. They are so strange and beautiful, and they are a good reminder that the Western Canon actually destroyed other cultures in its search of progress.

The Portland Headlight- Everyone go see some lighthouses. They are pretty and cool, and are usually really really windy. I love them on both coasts, but this is probably one of the greatest.

Cadillac Ranch- The Ant Farm made this piece simultaneously lampooning and praising American car culture. This piece is pretty popular for artists and tourists alike, and it lives just outside Amarillo Texas.

Cloud Gate (The Bean)- Chicago tourists often get their picture taken in front of this giant mirror, and I wonder how it would be to spend a whole day in this plaza- that probably makes for a great people-watching for the day. I also wonder if Anish Kapoor was building off of Nancy Holt's gates, which are famous land art works that you can go see as well, and there are "gate" sculptures in Seattle Center! Maybe I will do a whole blog on sculptures with "gate" in the title.

There are about a million suggestions I could give of things to go see. These are either ones I love or would love to go to. Just don't go to Mount Rushmore. Seriously, that place is my enemy, and it will turn against you.

At my job at the Cantor Art Center, we design art projects that are inspired by an art object within the museum. For September, I was inspired by Rauschenberg's assemblage Card Bird II:

From Here

This object provided the opportunity to learn about three important things
1. Assemblage- This is an art technique in which you combine objects into a relief or sculpture.
2. Texture- Because assemblage often uses uncommon materials, it also combines lots of textures that you don't often see in art objects. It allows you to play with all sorts of materials.
3. Value- Everyone thinks of art as something that is very expensive and valuable, but Rauschenberg and other artists (especially ones who worked in Happenings) tried to subvert the gallery system and models of value within it. I think this can be canned into an important lesson for children about how the value of something is in their ideas, not their objects. Anyway, that is what I was aiming for.

From Christies

Robert Rauschenberg was inspired by artists like John Cage, and many of his objects stress their low-value inspiration. Notice that he isn't just using cardboard, but he rips the edges so the corrugation inside shows and the writing is prominently featured. These are objects with literal rough edges, and you are supposed to feel like they were pulled out of a dumpster.

Many artists in the 60's were building new connections between high art and low or blue collar materials. Artists who made Happenings, for example Allan Kaprow and Robert Whitman, made performance environments where you feel a bit like you have walked into a dump. In Whitman's American Moon, the junk literally came alive.

Allan Kaprow- Yard- 1961

Robert Whitman- American Moon- 1960

At the same time, other artists were using banal, everyday materials as the subject of their art (think pop art and Andy Warhol's soup cans). This turn in art (and its overt response to the market) changed what could be said in American Art in a huge way. For our purposes, it sets up a project that can teach children, especially ones from dramatically varied households, that you don't need fancy materials to make good art. It also ties into Recology, which has a pretty great art fellowship in the Bay Area.

So, the project! I had the visitors make their own assemblages out of cardboard, butcher paper, old phone book pages, sponges, toothpicks, and any other junk I could find in the art studio. It was important to me to keep the colors relatively bland and minimal (even though I LOVE color). Like a fool, I didn't think to take pictures of the finished products, which were awesome. I told them to make birds, but they made all sorts of things, and they were gorgeous. When I teach again in a few weeks, I promise to take pictures. Here is the example I made:



Yay writing my own art lessons! Could I make this any more complicated for a room full of 40 2-10 year olds? Probably, and I will. Stay tuned.