Education and Community Programs

I was recently asked to shed some light on the many amazing art resources available to Minnesotan families for mnartist.org’s e-journal, access+ENGAGE. Be sure to check out the MASHUP collection to see which art organizations spark your child’s curiosity.

Raising a creative kid must sound daunting to any parent. Isn’t there enough pressure just raising a kid? I’m a non-breeder myself, but seeing the pace of life my sister keeps between taking care of her two girls and holding down a career makes me wonder how much time parents really have to research and plan for an outing to an art center or museum.

Any parent, whether they’re an artist or not, can find simple and easy ways of enjoying the arts with their kids. There are so many exciting,varied, and (most-importantly) cost-free opportunities here in the Twin Cities and throughout Minnesota available for families–you just need to know where to look. This MASHUP collection reflects a wide-ranging sampler of art organizations that welcome families to learn and engage in an artful experience.

Here are some tips to getting the most of these arts resources: Pace yourself. The number of things to see and do can be overwhelming, so take in bits at a time. First, you might select from a variety of free family events that cross over multiple disciplines to find what interests your children most. Museums like the Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and Rochester Art Center offer free family days each month (typically related to exhibitions), while smaller institutions like Highpoint Center for Printmaking and Minnesota Center for the Book Arts occasionally offer free and more specialized art-making workshops for families. An additional bonus to these programs is they’re led by some of the most talented local performing, visual, and teaching-artists. Be aware however, that free family days are popular, so arrive early to beat the crowds.

If you’re looking for a less hands-on adventure, try Childish Films–a program of classic, independent, and new world cinema (for ages 3 and up) held once a month at the Minneapolis Central Library. Avid theater-goers don’t have to sacrifice their ticket when they can’t find a sitter: bring the whole family along to any one of the internationally-acclaimed theaters in Minnesota. The Children’s Theatre Company is a favorite for families–showing wildly popular shows like Disney’s High School Musical; and the Guthrie Theater invites kids 4-11 to partake in play dates and discount matinee family tickets. Looking ahead to next June, the Ordway Center for the Performing Arts showcases a bonanza of international performing artists at the annual Flint Hills International Children’s Festival. Smaller theater and dance organizations not to be overlooked include Youth Performance Company, Stepping Stone Theater, Zenon Dance Company and School, and Young Dance.

Once your little one decides he’s/she’s going to be a puppet-maker, sculptor, circus acrobat, filmmaker, musician, or photographer, then its time to invest some time and money into classes, equipment, and a studio space! Good luck parents, and don’t freak out if you see a lone 30-year-old woman without kids looking like a tourist at the next Baby Loves Disco. It’s probably me doing “ field research”.

Acclaimed food and wine critic Dara Moskowitz Grumdahl muses on the perils and pleasures of trying to raise a creative kid for the mnartists.org e-journal access+ENGAGE.

When my son was fifteen months old, I bought him his first box of crayons. I was leaving the Galleria after a business lunch, and I bought them with the typically bizarre mixture of best intentions and overwhelming guilt that seems to come with being a parent.

On the one hand: What was I doing at the Galleria when I could be at home with the baby?

On the other hand: I had read on the Internet that some other mother of a fifteen-month-old was already archiving her child’s drawings. Why wasn’t I archiving my kid’s drawings? How could it be that my darling didn’t even have any drawings to archive? Bad mother!

On the third hand: Didn’t I want to be modeling good, strong, working-woman behavior for my little boy? And if I didn’t, what was the alternative? Modeling living-under-a-bridge behavior?

On the hundredth hand: Does buying crayons for a fifteen-month-old put undue pressure on a kid, like buying an SAT prep book for an eight-year-old? Once I was in the store and surveyed the options, I had new doubts: maybe fifteen-month-olds should work, not in crayons, but with collage! Perhaps the two of us should be exploring Jean Arp’s ideas of automatic composition and the organic beauty of chance? Don’t Arp’s collages kind of look like they were done by toddlers anyway? Or, wait: Is it wrong to buy scissors for a fifteen-month-old?

Bloody hell.

It was out of just those thousand-arms of doubt and hope that Creative Kidstuff netted eight bucks for soy-crayons and paper. I would say the hardest thing about raising creative kids is that you don’t do it in a vacuum: the world intrudes.

Read the rest at mnartists.org.

Pictured: Collage with Squares Arranged According to the Laws of Chance by Jean (Hans) Arp. 1916-17. Torn-and-pasted paper on blue-gray paper © 2007 Artists Rights Society, New York / VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn. Image appears courtesy MoMA online collection.