Museum Small Group: Ian, Saige, Travers

 

The first thing the children are attracted to is the brochures, and they each take one a look through them. (Ian and Saige hold onto these throughout the visit.)

Travers That’s drippy drippy (Ugly Mess sculpture)

Saige I saw drippy drippy when I drive by it with my mom.

Emily Why do you call it drippy drippy?

Travers Because it’s a statue.

We move to the disassembled iPhone and iPad, which they identify as a phone and an iPad, but have little more to say about. Then they notice someone going through a very tall and large set of doors nearby.

 

Emily Where do you think the door will lead us?

Travers: Back down to Studio Blue. (we go outside) Whoa! I see Studio Blue! (pointing to parking lot below)

Where should we go next? There: Saige points to the Process Gallery – a place where we can touch things! The hanging “screen” reminds Travers of a bracelet.

 We return to the museum and spend a moment here. Travers: Actually, somebody, queen goes in it. But there’s a show there that’s coming from sky.

 

A hot air balloon!

A mermaid!

Oh my gosh!

A man who brushes his hair. He has a comb and a brush. And he’s always painting himself.

Somebody’s breaking his house. It’s wobbly, it’s crack. He’s got to get out of his shaking house.

 

Is that a cage to lock somebody in?

 

 

Reflection:

At a recent staff meeting, Julie Bernson (deCordova dept of Learning & Engagement) discussed the use of VTS (Visual Thinking Strategy) when looking at works of art. It involves three questions: What’s happening here? What makes you say that? What more can you see? It was interesting to see that Travers answered these three questions when looking at Ghetto (the final painting, above) without being asked the questions at all.

Other observations:

The children are calling the Ugly Mess sculpture Drippy Drippy (or some variation of that), after hearing Luca say this at meeting, where we’ve brought a photo of this to our face game, which now includes a number of sculpture faces.

The three children were engaged throughout our museum visit.

When we found out that the big doors led to the outside, Travers pointed to the parking lot below, saying,  I see Studio Blue! It appears that, to Travers, the entirety of the deCordova grounds is “Studio Blue.”

The children were interested in having the brochures; Ian in particular would refer to it frequently throughout our visit. Is it possible that holding an object such as this brochure will help children refrain from touching works of art in future visits? How would the children have responded if we had visited a work of art in the museum that was also pictured in the brochure?