Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: TUESDAY, October 5, 1993 TAG: 9311170238
SECTION: EXTRA PAGE: 1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: JOE KENNEDY STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
It's called ArtVenture, and it's a joint project of the museum and the Junior League of the Roanoke Valley. Aimed at fourth- and fifth-grade pupils, it will be open weekdays to school groups. Its grand opening will be observed Oct. 16; on that Saturday and the Saturdays thereafter, it will be open to the public between 10 a.m. and 2 p.m.
Admission is free at all times. Junior League volunteers will serve as instructors and guides.
ArtVenture occupies four rooms on the second floor of Center in the Square's annex on Church Avenue in Roanoke. Visitors will first enter the orientation room, where a combination sculpture and mural called ArtVenturers will greet them. It was created by Mimi Babe Harris and Donna Essig.
``It's a hands-on work of art that teaches children the basic elements of art: line, color, shape, texture and form,'' said Mark Scala, the museum's director of education, who worked closely with the League in developing ArtVenture.
Down the hall, in the gallery, visitors will be given a mini-tour of temporary exhibits and will be asked to describe what they think the artists are trying to communicate. The current exhibit includes black dolls by Kimberly Camp of Washington; a quilt titled ``For the Birds'' and incorporating a number of different objects, by Susan Shie and James Acord of Wooster, Ohio; trapunto paintings, an Italian art form, from Pacita Abad of Washington; and animal costumes that demonstrate various elements of art from Denise Fogleman of Seattle.
The layout's major room is called Art in Action room, with nine stations where children can learn about art and try their hand at it, too. Exhibits include the Composition Seesaw, which enables children to use small pillows to balance a seesaw, with a painting by Ray Kass of Blacksburg as a comparison; Facing the Light, a mirror cut into a cubist formation from Picasso's ``Ambroise Vollard'' and a funhouse mirror, plus red, blue and yellow lights, all of which allow participants to alter color through light changes; A Clearer View, three easels accessible from both sides, on which youngsters can learn about proportion, perspective and use the see-through easel to paint what's on the other side.
A display called Visages: Masks of the World, by Katie Highfill and Mimi Hodgin, allows children to create masks for themselves as a means of encouraging self-expression. It includes fabric reproductions of costumes from Roanoke's sister cities in Korea, Africa and Russia.
At the end of each tour, the youngsters will go into a studio and create their own work of art.
ArtVenture sprang from an idea from Susan Jennings, a Junior League member who is now the interim executive director of the Arts Council of the Blue Ridge. Mary Jean Levin is chairman of the project for the Junior League, which provided all of the funding.
``Susan has been pulling things together for eight years,'' Scala said, ``getting research done and laying the groundwork for Junior League approval.'' He joined her and later Levin after he was hired by the museum in 1990.
Last week, a class of fifth-graders from Raleigh Court Elementary School took a trial run through the project.
``It went pretty well,'' Scala said. ``They were wild.''
Three or four stations proved to be their favorites. Their grasp of some others was handicapped by a lack of signs. Those signs are now in place.
by CNB