Summer Shows with Children
On a Friday in July, my three children and I escaped the heat by visiting the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art in Tarpon Springs, where we went to see one of the summer exhibitions Interwoven Legacies: Celebrating 25 Years of the Tampa Bay Surface Design Guild in Honor of Marlene Glickman.
The first response upon entering was a plea from the museum docent to make sure my children do not touch the artwork, which for their age and tactile sensibilities was like waving a bone in front of a dog and asking it not to salivate.
Surprisingly my kids understood that even though these works had layers of texture, they demanded respect and care, and so my three kept their fingers far enough away but still liked to gesture at the artwork and point out areas of interest.
For Madeline, this meant any work that had realistic and representative scenes. She really loved The Wind is in From Africa by Susan Lumsden, and Everglades-Pahokia by Elizabeth Neily.
She started to show Thomas the different shapes in Stars in the Garden by Barbara Hacker.
William was most taken with the black and white work Soul Mates by Marlene Glickman. He interpreted the work as a symbolic yin and yang and liked the ombré effect in the lower portion of the tapestry.
What surprised me was the kids’ interpretations of the rainbow pieces such as Marlene Glickman’s Rainbow Multi Panel, 2018. In a way they were making sense of the artwork by relating it to something familiar, so they stated that Green represented Disgust, Blue Sadness, Purple Ennui, Pink Embarrassment, Red Anger, Orange Anxiety and Yellow Joy.
When I asked them if they were reading the pictures within each square they replied emphatically, “No, it’s the characters from the movie Inside Out 2” and they subsequently repeated the same exercise with Healing Hues by Kathleen Fulmer.
After we toured the remaining exhibitions we went to the study area. Thomas scrolled through the Surface Design Guild digital portfolio asking me to call out each title and artist name and when he had finished he joined his siblings in coloring. This kept everyone occupied for a good half an hour.
On our visit we had the honor of meeting Christine Renc-Carter, the Museum’s Executive Director who encouraged us to return to see the Tampa Bay Surface Design Guild Fashion Show scheduled for July 26.
Alas we missed this event and I’m sharing this reflection of our summer art adventure from the balcony of a coffee hacienda in Medellín, Colombia.
I’ll end by saying I hope more families visit the Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art and enjoy their new exhibitions opening on August 24 and on view until December.
leeparattner.org/exhibitions/upcoming-exhibitions
Leepa-Rattner Museum of Art
at St Petersburg College
600 E Klosterman Rd
Tarpon Springs FL 34689
Free, Donations welcome
Hours
Tuesday-Saturday 10 am-5 pm
Sunday 1-5 pm
