Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: MONDAY, January 10, 1994 TAG: 9401120007
SECTION: NEWSFUN PAGE: NF-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: By WENDI GIBSON RICHERT NEWSFUN WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
``Coooool.''
``Hey, that's cool!''
In a word, the fourth-graders in Connie Gilmore's Morningside Elementary School class say their recent field trip to ArtVenture was, well, cool.
Gilmore's pupils, who are studying at the James Madison Middle School annex in Roanoke this year while their school is being renovated, visited ArtVenture in December.
ArtVenture is a fun way to study art at the Art Museum of Western Virginia in downtown Roanoke. Unlike many museums you might visit, you may touch and gently play with many of the things here. In fact, you'll even get a chance to make your own art.
ArtVenture opened in October, but the idea of a children's art center in Roanoke has been around for eight years. It took that long for members of the Junior League of Roanoke Valley and the Art Museum of Western Virginia to research other children's museums around the country. Once they gathered the best ideas from the best museums, ArtVenture was planned, funded and built.
Now, it's open on weekdays for school groups to tour, and on Saturdays for the public. And it's free, too.
What can you expect if you visit ArtVenture?
The first room you'll tour is the orientation room. Here you'll meet ``The ArtVenturers.'' These are three movable half-animal and half-human figures standing in front of a mural of a forest. Every color of the rainbow is in it, and museum volunteers say kids can't help but touch it - which they are allowed to do!
This hands-on sculpture and mural, designed by local artists Mimi Babe Harris and Donna Essig, teaches the four principles of art. They are color, line, shape and texture. Visitors are asked to find as many of the four principles as they can in ``The ArtVenturers.''
The next room on the tour is the gallery where exhibits of art change every few months. You cannot touch the objects in this room because they are meant to be enjoyed visually - by looking at them. But you will learn a lot about art, such as how some works are made and what inspired the artists to make them.
Recently, the gallery housed ``Figures in Fabric,'' art made out of fabric. This exhibit excited the Morningside class as they sat in the middle of the floor. Pupil Mark Deaner said he didn't even know you could make art out of fabric.
Now through June, original art works from children's books are in the gallery. This exhibit is titled ``Every Picture Tells a Story.''
The third room in ArtVenture has nine hands-on stations that you can play with. And you don't have to stick together to play, either. Here, in the Art in Action room, kids can spread out and enjoy each station.
The favorite, says museum education director Mark Scala, is ``A Clearer View.'' Here, kids sit at three easels made of clear glass and accessible from both sides. They paint on the glass the portrait of whomever is sitting on the other side, then press paper to the painted glass to print their painting.
Other stations are ``Composition Seesaw,'' which teaches balance in art; ``Facing the Light,'' which shows how color and light affect art; ``Surreal to So-Real,'' which shows how artists can distort images to make us feel different emotions; and ``Field of Vision,'' which allows you to make a fabric collage on a giant Veltex-covered board.
Also here you'll find ``Visages: Masks of the World,'' where you can create a mask from another culture; ``Portrait of the Artist,'' which tells you the relationship between portrait painter Jane Eleanor Sherman Lacy and her subjects;``Icon Picture It,'' which uses computers to ask questions about art; and ``Frottage: The Feel of Vision,'' a wall of six plaster squares cast with images and patterns.
Each station teaches about art in a fun way. This is why ArtVenture's creed, says Scala, is ``They'll have so much fun, they won't know they're learning.'' Gilmore's class agreed: They did have fun - and they did learn.
The last room on the tour is the studio, where an artist or volunteers lead visitors in an art workshop. The Morningside class gathered around Roanoke County art teacher Debbie Harris to learn how to make paper figures from a mix of paper pulp and water.
The best thing about making your own art is there are no right or wrong answers, Harris told the class. The pupils designed their own paper figures. Some made ballerina dancers, others made muscle men. Some sprinkled sparkly stars and beads on them while others fit feathers in theirs. They even got to take their artwork home.
The tour lasts nearly two hours, but the time flies by because you're having so much fun. In fact, Scala says the goal of ArtVenture is ``to show that art is a lot of fun.''
Morningside pupil William Thorne said yes, it was fun. ``I like it because you get to touch the stuff.''
by CNB