Special Trip to the Stamps Gallery

This afternoon, both first and second grade classes loaded the buses at noon and traveled to downtown Ann Arbor to visit the Stamps Gallery. We were met by some lovely people who spent so much time with us - showing us around, explaining how a gallery is set up, how they made decisions about naming the exhibit, how they decided what height to place the pictures, and so on.

Then, each child made an art piece of their own. They were given free choice of materials and theme. After, they needed to fill out a label, including artist name, title of piece, media, and date. Curators, using gloved hands, carefully hung their finished works in a temporary exhibit. Children went through the gallery, enjoying their classmate's work.

Finally, artists were given a chance to get up to talk about their piece - what they used as inspiration, what the title was, and anything else they wanted to share.

We are truly inspired! Now we have a lot more ideas for our own gallery opening. Many thanks to Jennifer and the rest of the crew at Stamps Gallery. Thanks also to my teaching partner Tate for setting up such a magical and important field study.