So, off we went around the museum. Our first stop was the large glass sculpture by Dave Chihuly. The docent asked us if we saw any insect shapes on the sculpture. The kids saw lots of insect shapes, from wings to antlers.
Next, we ventured into the hallway to look at a sculpture made out of a book.
The artist cut the lines out of a book and rolled them into a ball, sort of like a ball of yarn. A sculpture made from a book... the kids were fascinated!
We looked at George Bellows Riverside Drive and I told the students that Bellows was from Columbus. The docent asked us to count all the people in the painting. I think we got up to 36, which is amazing because when you first look at the dark night scene, it only looks like there are few figures in it.
We looked at Fall Leaves by Georgia O'Keefe and talked about the season and how O'Keefe liked to paint from nature.
In the hallway, we looked at a recent acquisition by Jackson Pollack. It's one of his earlier works which was done before he started painting in the dripped paint/splatter technique. If you look closely, you can see figures in the painting. The we went in to the moderism room. On the wall, was a large map painting done by William Wegman. Most people think of Wegman's Weimaraner photos. I had no idea he was such an accomplished painter!
Mrs. Luker said that he financed this large piece with his Weimaraner photographs. It's an amazing work and I managed to capture some closeups with few details.
After our tour, we were invited down for some hands on art activities. The kids were making "care packages" with recycled materials, and all sorts of other art materials like air dry clay.
I'm glad we had this opportunity to visit the museum together. Hopefully the students will want to come back to the museum with their new found in depth knowledge about the work we saw there.
