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Claire Barrera
August 15, 2019
The Art Cart in action
A New After-School Program at the Georgia Museum of Art
Ever wanted the fun of our monthly Family Days but on a weekday afternoon? The Georgia Museum of Art is offering a new monthly after-school program, Art Cart (After Class) for the whole family. The program is designed to offer some creative exploration in between school hours and dinner time. It takes place from 3 to 4:30 p.m. one Wednesday a month, and participants can drop in at a time that works for them during those 90 minutes.
Two large carts containing activities, games and art projects related to current exhibitions will be stationed in the galleries. The carts allow families to choose their own adventure and go at their own pace. With multiple options for self-guided participation, Art Cart (After Class) creates a laid-back, yet hands-on environment.
“We wanted to offer the community a flexible program for that afternoon time period after school gets out. Because the program includes multiple activities, it is perfect for busy families who can drop in and complete as many or as few projects as they have room for in their schedules,” says Emily Hogrefe-Ribeiro, assistant curator of education.
The key feature of the program is its tactile, hands-on component. Hogrefe-Ribeiro elaborates, “Being able to participate in an interactive gallery activity or art-making project that focuses on specific works of art can help participants look more closely at the art, consider it more deeply and make personal connections. Hands-on, tactile experiences also help younger visitors understand and process what they are looking at when they visit. Hands-on experiences can make visiting an art museum more meaningful and exciting, and we hope the Art Cart (After Class) activities inspire discovery and exploration in the museum's galleries.”
The inspiration for the Art Cart (After Class) program came from other museums with similar programs, such as Art Splash at the Philadelphia Museum of Art. The education department first secured funding through a grant from Georgia Council for the Arts in 2017. Curator of education Dr. Callan Steinmann recalls, “The carts were first used as gallery stations during the 5th-grade tours that year, when students visited the exhibition ‘Crafting History: Textiles, Metals and Ceramics at the University of Georgia.’ The carts were perfect for that program because we were able to present examples of ceramics, metalworking, and textile pieces made by students here at UGA, and 5th-graders on the tours could get up close and touch the materials and tools. This really helped them understand the process used by the artists in the show in a deeper way.”
Unlike Family Day, which features several activities across the museum, the Art Carts are stationed in one gallery, focusing on works from a traveling exhibition or the permanent collection. The program moves to a different part of the museum each month, ensuring that the activities will always be new and content-specific. For example, Hogrefe-Ribeiro tells us that the September Art Cart (After Class), “will all take place in the impressionism gallery, so the activities will be tailored to impressionist artists and that time period. Visitors can create poetry inspired by the natural world detailed in the gallery’s paintings; they can explore constructing and deconstructing their own still-life artwork and they can add to a collaborative work of art.”
Upcoming Art Cart (After Class) programs are scheduled for: