Children listen to Emily Dean, curator of education, talk about a piece by Lee Renninger at the UM Museum in Oxford, Miss., Tuesday, Sept. 9, 2014. (DM Photo | Payton Teffner)
ArtZone, a 12-week art program for students in kindergarten through 6th grade began yesterday and will continue until Dec. 4.
The program is anticipated to inspire children’s creativity with the help of the museum’s curator of education Emily Dean and her team. The programs offer hands-on activities as well as exploring famous artists and themes in art history.
Each art project will focus on special exhibits in the museum that include rare pieces not ordinarily on display, according to Dean.
“We will be using mosaic tiles, model magic, marbles and more to create 3D collages inspired by Mississippi artist Lee Renninger’s ceramic installation at the Museum,” Dean said.
Julie Mauldin, Dean’s assistant, expects the focus on Renninger’s artwork to be one of the more interesting and exciting exhibits for the children. Another exhibit they look forward to exploring is “Bloomingdales Fashion Touchdown.”
“We will be using a variety of mediums in our projects featuring these exhibits, and I really think it is going to appeal to students of every age,” Mauldin said of these two in particular.
Their team hopes the famous works will inspire the children to not only absorb the style of the artists but also cultivate their own artistic style.
Children in kindergarten through 2nd grade will be developing a relationship with the museum for the first time, while older students will be delving deeper into their artistic skills.
As an advocate for introducing young children to art, Dean’s main goal for these children is that they “explore the reaches of their own creativity as they solve problems, experiment with new materials and methods and create unique works of art.”
The popularity of ArtZone brings back old and new faces.
“This year, we have many returning students from previous semesters, and it challenges us to come up with new ideas,” Mauldin said.
As the parent of three returning ArtZone students, Shanna Flashka said she keeps enrolling her children because the art is always changing.
“They like learning about a different artist every week, and the kind of art they do every week changes,” Flashka said. “They don’t have this kind of art diversity in schools.”
