Visiting with Children

Tips for Visiting DeCordova Museum with Children

Before leaving the house, prepare the children for the visit. Tell them the overall plan for the visit (What will they do? How long will they be there? Will they visit the Store or the Café as well as the galleries or Sculpture Park?). Also discuss the rules in art museums (No touching the art in the galleries, no running).
Pack a sketch pad and a plain (not colored) pencil if your child likes to draw or write. Give them time to sketch or write their reactions to the art.
Upon arriving, ask the Reception Desk where to find the bathroom, Café, and phone, and what time the Store closes.
Do not plan to see everything. Pick one or two things to do or see. It’s better to make a return visit than to get "museum fatigue."
Divide your visit into small time blocks, with different activities and time to rest, go to the bathroom, or eat.

Gallery Activities:

With very young children, look for simple shapes, lines, and colors and identify them. Ask them to describe lines in terms of animals or other things they are familiar with, for example, "This line looks like a snake."
For older children try the Judgment Game: In a gallery, ask, Which artwork do you think required the most skill to make? Which one cost the most? Which one would you give to your parents as a present? Which one do you like the best? The least? (You can make up your own categories.) Ask your children to explain their choices.
When looking at art, you can stimulate a lot of discussion by asking these three questions in this order:
What do you see?
What’s going on here?
What do you see that makes you say that?
Don’t agree or disagree with their answers, just listen attentively and you may be surprised to see the art in a whole new way!
DeCordova creates Family Gallery Activity Guides for some of its exhibitions. Ask at the Reception Desk for details.

The Dr. Kenneth Germeshausen Art ExperienCenter

Have you ever wondered if abstract art is art? Would you like to try your hand at creating abstract art—without the mess? Then visit DeCordova’s latest innovative gallery, the Dr. Kenneth Germeshausen Art ExperienCenter, opened to the public. Located on DeCordova’s fourth floor, the Art ExperienCenter provides fun, interactive, educational experiences for Museum visitors from ages 5 to 100.

Generously funded by the Germeshausen Foundation, the objectives of the Art ExperienCenter are to provide an interactive educational experience for casual visitors of all ages and to use DeCordova’s permanent collection exhibition, Landscapes Seen and Imagined: Sense of Place as a basis for understanding non-representational art. The Art ExperienCenter seeks to give visitors a comfortable environment to explore their questions and conceptions about abstract art as well as to construct new understandings of non-representational artwork. Specifically, the Art ExperienCenter explains the significance and intent of non-representational art; encourages personal interpretation and discussion about art; and provides art-making experiences that illuminate the processes of non-representational art.

Laura Howick, DeCordova’s former Museum Educator/Outreach Coordinator, explained, "The design of the Art ExperienCenter was guided by DeCordova’s philosophy of education where interactivity is the key element." Outside the Art ExperienCenter, in the hallway, typical comments and questions about abstract art are projected on the wall, engaging visitors in a dialogue before they enter the Gallery. A comment such as "You call that art?" and "A four year-old could do that!" acknowledge that non-representational art is often puzzling to viewers. Inside the Center, activities invite visitors to write their responses to art, to draw from non-representational and abstract art, to create a thematic exhibition, and to listen to artists explain why they work in a non-representational style.

There are five interactive exhibitions within the Art ExperienCenter:

Quest for Essence Light Table—Visitors choose a photograph and then draw its essential characteristics with as few lines as possible;
Write Your Own Label—Visitors write their own responses to an artwork and then display it on the wall next to other labels;
Artists @ Work Video Jukebox—Visitors listen to four artists, featured in Sense of Place, explain why they make non-representational art;Create Your Own Exhibition—Visitors choose an exhibition title and then can select artwork to represent it (a particularly good family activity);
Virtual Canvas—Visitors select a piece of music, a color, and a brushstroke, and then "paint" to music on a virtual canvas.

The Art ExperienCenter will be updated every time a major permanent collection exhibition is installed at DeCordova.

Come visit the Art ExperienCenter and you will not only learn more about art, but also have fun! The Center is open during normal Museum hours and is free with Museum admission.