if you know me or have been to the artlab or read my last blog entry youll knowi have a 4 yo....BOY! changed my life, my working class descriptions & lesson plans, my view on art-making, and my choices of artwork to look at in a given trip to the museums.
this also means i dont get to spend time dreaming or drawing with him. and when i take him to the Museum of Modern Art in NYC i dont get to speculate about starry night or write poems about ellsworth kelly spectrums. i DO get to find as many wheels as i can, look at the helicopter hanging from the ceiling FROM EVERY ANGLE and talk about it's engine and rescue abilities. we act out the last scene in the cars movie/nascar race as we look at the real life racecar driving down the wall. we wondered together about duchamp's readymade with the wheel, tinguelys mechanicals with the 5 wheels, and the jasper johns symbols of americana with bullseye shapes also reminiscent of, yes, a wheel (he has 2 friends named jasper so he especially liked that gallery).
but
in addition to stopping at wheel after wheel and making it our mission to 'wheel hunt', i also was privy to the inner workings of a real life BOY MIND in a different context than most days. in a museum he was a BOY looking at functional art, a BOY moving through a gallery experience with efficiency and purpose, a BOY imagining himself and his friends making the art and living in the stories the art tells. thats my future stuntman, actor, engineeer , lawyer or security guard.
yes, thats my future sculptor or mechanic OR perhaps dare i even say teacher. he shined a light on so much, and got my wheels turning in a different way! now when i take him to the museums i think about his BOY perspective, not what i (as a contemporary art museum educator) want him to see. i explore galleries and let his passions guide the adventure, not beeline to my most favorite oeuvres. ill always try to sneak that in, but first we explore with his interests in mind. its SOOO much more fun this way, and like i said my WHEELS start turning too....on the way home while he dreams in the back seat of the station wagon!
