ArtSpace

The place for budding Picassos is our ArtSpace - Make and take home your child's masterpiece in this hands-on craft area. Self-expression and creativity come alive while working with a variety of art materials. Creating their own piece of art helps children develop decision-making skills and teaches them how to plan ahead and follow directions. We invite you to join us in the new ArtSpace on the third floor. We have special projects Monday through Saturday!

 

Upcoming Activities 

July 5 - 9: Thumb Print Ladybugs 

July 12 - 16: Dinosaur Rubbing Plates 

July 19 - 23: Color Scratch Jungle Animals

July 26 - 30: Slap Bracelet Designing

 

 

 

Artist of the Month for July 2010

Andre Derain  (1880-1954)

He was a French painter and co-founder of Fauvism with Henri Matisse. He is famous for his landscapes with vivid, unnatural colors that led the critic Louis Vauxcelles to dub his and Matisse's works as les fauves, or "the wild beasts,” marking the start of the Fauvist movement. In 1906, he went to London and painted 30 paintings (the Thames, and the Tower Bridge), in bold colors and compositions, which remain among his most popular work. Between 1900 and 1920, he worked as a painter, sculptor, graphic artist and theatrical designer. He was also an early enthusiast of Cubism, but later his art was more towards the influence of the Old Masters.

      

 

Artist of the Month for June 2010

Wassily Kandinsky (1866-1944)

Wassily Wassilyewich Kandinsky was a Russian painter, and art theorist. He is credited with painting the first modern abstract works. He was an abstract expressionist.

Born in Moscow, Kandinsky spent his childhood in Odessa. He enrolled at the University of Moscow and chose to study law and economics. Quite successful in his profession, he was offered a professorship at the University of Dorpat. He started painting studies (life drawing, sketching and anatomy) at the age of 30.

In 1921, he settled in Germany and taught at the Bauhaus school of art and architecture from 1922 until the Nazis closed it in 1933. He then moved to France where he lived the rest of his life, and became a French citizen in 1939. He died at Neuilly-sur-Seine in 1944.

   

 

Artist of the Month for May 2010

Salvador Dalí (1904-1989)

Salvador Dalí was a prominent Spanish Catalan surrealist painter influenced by the Renaissance masters. He is famous for his striking and bizarre images. His best-known work is “The Persistence of Memory,” completed in 1931. His artistic repertoire includes film, sculpture and photography.

Dalí was highly imaginative. He had an affinity for partaking in unusual and grandiose behavior, in order to draw attention to himself. He grew a flamboyant moustache, influenced by seventeenth-century Spanish master painter Diego Velázquez. The moustache became his iconic trademark, which he kept for the rest of his life.

 

 

Artist of the Month for April 2010

Frida Kahlo (1907 – 1954)

She was a Mexican painter. She painted using vibrant colors in a style that was influenced by indigenous cultures of Mexico and European influences including Realism, Symbolism, and Surrealism. Many of her works are self-portraits that symbolically articulate her own pain. Kahlo was married to Mexican muralist Diego Rivera.

When she was 18 years old she was in a serious accident that left her with a broken spinal column, collarbone, ribs and pelvis, among other injuries. Although she recovered, she was plagued by relapses of extreme pain for the rest of her life. She started painting to occupy her time during her temporary state of immobilization.

 

 

Artist of the Month for March 2010

 Andy Warhol (1928 – 1987)

 He was an American painter, printmaker and filmmaker. He was a leading figure in the visual art movement known as pop art. After a successful career as a commercial illustrator, Warhol became famous worldwide for his work as a painter, avant-garde filmmaker, record producer, author and public figure known for his membership in wildly diverse social circles that included bohemian street people, distinguished intellectuals, Hollywood celebrities and wealthy aristocrats. It was during the 1960s that Warhol began to make paintings of iconic American products such as Campbell 's Soup Cans from the Campbell Soup Company and Coca-Cola bottles, as well as paintings of celebrities such as Marilyn Monroe, Troy Donahue, and Elizabeth Taylor. He founded "The Factory," his studio during these years, and gathered around himself a wide range of artists, writers, musicians and underground celebrities. He began producing prints using the silkscreen method.

 

Artist of the Month for February 2010

Franz Marc (1890-1916)

Franz Marc was one of the principal painters and printmakers of the German Expressionist movement. He was a founding member of “Der Blaue Reiter” (“The Blue Rider”). Among organizing several exhibits, they also published an almanac featuring contemporary, primitive and folk art, along with children’s paintings. He was born in Munich . His father was a professional landscape painter, and his mother a strict Calvinist. In Paris , he frequented artistic circles and became in contact with a number of artists. He discovered a strong affinity for the work of Van Gogh. Marc developed an important friendship with the artist August Macke, Wassily Kandinsky, Paul Klee, and other artists.

Most of his mature work portrays animals, usually in natural settings. His work is characterized by bright primary color, an almost cubist portrayal of animals, stark simplicity and a profound sense of emotion. Marc also gave an emotional meaning or purpose to the colors he used in his work, blue would be used for masculinity and spirituality, yellow represented feminine joy and red encased the sound of violence.

  

Artist of the Month for January 2010

Rene Magritte (1898-1967)

René Magritte was a surrealist artist, born in Belgium.

Surrealism: Style using imagery from dreams and the subconscious, often distorting forms of ordinary objects or placing them in new contexts.

His work frequently contains a juxtaposition of ordinary objects or an unusual context giving new meanings to familiar things.

In addition to these fantastic elements, his work is often witty and amusing, and he created a number of surrealist versions of other famous paintings.