On-Site: Neighborhood Partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

On-Site: Neighborhood Partnerships with the Los Angeles County Museum of Art

Please enjoy reading a wonderful post written by Karen Satzman, Director of Youth & Family Programs at LACMA, The Los Angeles County Museum of Art…

I was honored to serve as teaching artist for a series of onsite LACMA art making workshops on “People Street“, in North Hollywood, in the NoHo Arts District.

Upcoming NoHo LACMA art workshops include:

Make a Flag Book 2 pm
2 pm | Sat, October 14, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

Make a Tunnel Book
2 pm | Sat, November 18, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

Make an Accordion Book
2 pm | Sat, December 9, 2017
Participate in a free artist-led workshop and create your own artwork in response to works in LACMA’s collection.
North Hollywood | Valley Plaza Branch Library
Free and open to the public
Note: This program takes place off-site on 12311 Vanowen St., North Hollywood, CA 91605
This project is supported by a grant from The James Irvine Foundation.

 JOIN US!

 

Tunneling our Way Through…Making Tunnel Books

Tunneling our Way Through…Making Tunnel Books

For the last class of our recent children’s bookmaking class at LACMA, we made tunnel books…comprised of two spines or sides, a back “page” holding them together.

To prepare for our project, we visited the beautiful LACMA Directors Roundtable Garden, resplendent with its Alexander Calder sculptures: mobiles and stabiles.

We observed how perspective is created by distance, saw how things looked smaller the farther away we are from them, and did a group exercise where each student in turn stated what they saw behind what the previous student said they saw…learning to see in “distance layers” (my terminology), I.E. in perspective.  We also explored the idea of scale seeing how large or small objects are in relation to each other.

Finally, we repaired to the lovely glassed in Plaza Studio, to put our learnings and observations into action, and create our books, exploring color, character, story and setting/environment in the process.

The results are…well, you can see for yourself why I called this class our “Seven From Heaven”!

Students of their own volition devised a theme,

such as this figure hiking,

and followed it through, in this case in silhouette form.

This young artist found images from magazines,

and created a scene with them.

Some created land, city and seascapes through cutting and shaping paper and cardstock strips, and adhering them to the spines,

to beautiful effect.

Students” individual color choices are always interesting…

and often very consistent…also with their clothing color choices, and probably more.

This innovative and well-traveled maker added the words, “Paris, London, New York” on these strips. her travels and where she has lived with her creative family is an important part of her identity.

The red spines on either side create a theatrical effect in this piece, that this bookmaker worked on with meticulous attention to detail, and tender loving care, as she did with all her projects.

I am so going to miss this class. It truly was heavenly to work with such motivated, thoughtful and devoted young creatives in the nurturing, inspirational and magnificent setting of the Los Angeles County Museum of Art. May the “Seven From Heaven” ride LACMA art-mobile again soon, and may it be with me!

“Let’s Make Books” at LACMA

“Let’s Make Books” at LACMA

It has been wonderful to teach a family bookmaking class: “Let’s Make Books” for ages 5 and up at LACMA (The Los Angeles County Museum of Art).

Parents can attend with their children, and spend three hours visiting and drawing in LACMA’s galleries, grounds and gardens, walking through its architecture, and learning about its collection, before returning to one of the LACMA Art Studios to work together on art projects related to what has been visited and viewed.  A total experience of art immersion!

In this class thus far we have made accordion books with pop-ups, “folded fan” books with “windows and doors”, flag books, and tunnel books. A grand time has been had by all, including myself.  It is wonderful to work with families, see parents and siblings interacting, and the grown-ups getting a creative break which hopefully will refresh and rejuvenate them when they leave LACMA, and return to their daily lives.

Folded fan book with “windows” that open.

“Playing” with washi tape.

HeARTfelt…

The tunnel book can fold up, stand up, and stretch.

Using LACMA exhibition announcements and postcards as part of the artwork.

Doors closed….

Doors open…

In process…

A colorful collection of magnificent tunnel books!

The creative endeavor of our kindly assistant…who played imaginatively with the tunnel book structure!

Kindness, creativity, imagination, play…these are the hallmarks of our program, and were in abundance during our class. Hurray for LACMA!

We have a bookmaking class for children aged 10-13 starting in early April…check it out!  We would love to have your children in our class…making art together.