If you’ve been to Studio 10 lately, you may have noticed a very different project taking place.  You’ll find a carpeted area for working, a few tables covered in canvas for supplies and logs for sitting. Our more traditional materials of paper, glue sticks and scissors have been replaced with rocks, stumps, branches, acorns, pinecones and shells.  Inspired by the work of guest artist, Zach Pine, this month’s project offers our visitors an opportunity to build, stack, balance and play with entirely natural materials.

Bruce Simon, the Director of Programs and Education, brought Zach Pine in to talk to our education staff about the benefits of working with nature.  The concept for this project was to provide natural materials in an indoor setting for our visitors to build with and play with and leave for others to enjoy and reuse.  This is unlike any other project we’ve done in the space, so we had a lot of questions on how it would actually work. 

We began by collecting materials around our site.  We weren’t sure what would be inspiring to kids at this point, but there was a lot of debris around after the recent storms and our exhibits crew began saving clippings for us.  The discovery guides started gathering pine cones, Eucalyptus buttons, and leaves while they did their rounds in Look-out Cove.  We also received a terrific donation of rocks from American Soil in San Rafael.  

The thing that was most surprising to us is that kids ‘got it’ immediately.  Kids like to build stuff.  It’s a natural drive; they do it all the time.  Providing materials and a place for building is all many kids need to get started.  Others are a little timid about moving the pieces around, but after a little bit of mediation they often jump right in as well.  We have seen some amazing pieces come out of this project.  There have been some incredible feats of balance with the stumps and stones, as well as some intricately arranged seashell and pebble shrines.  The sculptures are as varied as our audience and consist of room-wide collaboration or tiny, focus individual creations.  Parents have been getting into the act as well, helping their kids with problem-solving and creating some beautiful sculptures of their own.

Studio 10 has become a very different environment lately.  I really enjoy some of the quieter, focused moments that happen there.  From collecting, to sorting, to stacking and arranging, there is a lot of work for little people to do and some families stay for hours.  My hope is that this project will inspire families in a new way to play together at this museum as well as at the beach, the woods or in their own backyards. 

Come join us in Studio 10 throughout the month of March.

This entry was posted on March 03, 2008 and is filed under Wednesday Kirwin.
Tagged: Behind the scenes, creativity
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