Museum Education Programs: On Learning Styles and Apple Pigs

Courtesy OMA’s Twitter! @museumsontario

I just returned from an intensive, 3-day course in Sarnia with the Ontario Museum Association.  It was their Education Programs course, part of their Certificate in Museums Studies.

Held in the beautiful new Judith & Norman Alix Gallery, the instructor Melissa Wakeling from Glanmore National Historic Site was a wonderful facilitator, introducing great concepts and modeling best practice throughout! (that is, teaching to all possible learning intelligences).

Here, I thought I’d share with you a few of the great take-aways from the course:

Know your learning style. While this may seem self-indulgent, knowing your preferred learning style will help you recognize any preference you may have when constructing programs and activities. What you think is a great activity may only be working with your preferred learning style.

Assess your learning style here.

Beware apple pigs!  That is, make sure your museum’s mandate is always connected to your programming. Create activities accordingly. It’s a baseless activity for a heritage village museum to stick marshmallows on an apple in the shape of a pig for a harvest-themed program (unless, of course, you can find early settlers who did this with their precious produce!)

Feed ‘em, teach ‘em, entertain ‘em. Adults learn differently from children. They’re also motivated by different factors. Want to get adults in to your museum? Feed ‘em, teach ‘em, and entertain ‘em.

Curriculum, curriculum, curriculum! Teachers are busy people. We want them in our museums, and we can make it easier for them to come here by adding value to our programs and marketing that will appeal directly to them. Teachers need to justify their field trips: make clear connections to curriculum. Even better (for all you keeners), make a rubric for your program. Allow the teacher to stand back and have the chance to observe the class. And, with a handy rubric, they can grade the students easily. And certainly, speak their language! We all have insider-speak; if you use the glossary (found in the Ontario Curriculum), then the teacher (and students!) can very easily make connections to what they’re doing in class.

- Teresa Gregorio

Teresa Gregorio is Information Officer at the McMaster Museum of Art and Co-Coordinator of Hamilton-Area Museum Educators (HME) 

Kids, Quotes and Kudos from March Break Tours

We’ve been very busy here at the MMA for March Break! Children from ages 4-12 have come in for tours of our new exhibit The Moderns.  Thanks so much to everyone for coming in!

Some favourite quotes of the week:

I can’t believe Herman Levy had enough room for all these paintings!

This painting reminds me of my grandma’s house, and I love my grandma so I love this painting! (about the Henri LeSidaner painting shown below)

One of the best museums ever! I would love to come here every day!

Henri Le Sidaner (French, 1862-1939), Le Vase Rouge, late 19th-mid 20th Century, Oil, Gift of Herman Levy, Esq., O.B.E., Collection of McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University

The McMaster Museum of Art staff and docent team offer individual and group tours to all ages and hands-on educational activities, customized to suit your interests. Book yours today!

- Teresa Gregorio, Museum Monitor / Information Officer, McMaster Museum of Art

International Women’s Day 2013

This Friday, March 8th is International Women’s Day, a worldwide celebration of women, peace and human rights.

In celebration, Nicole Knibb, Education Coordinator at McMaster’s Museum of Art, is presenting a talk, “Women and Art: A HerStory” at a CAW Local 555 luncheon. This lively presentation will offer lots of art images of the work of women artists through the centuries and reveal the challenges they have had to overcome to become a vibrant part of art and the culture of our times. We are delighted by the response to this CAW 555 Women’s Committee event. Registration is now full, however, if your group is interested in booking this presentation on another date, please contact Nicole –  knibbn@mcmaster.ca.

PAULA MODERSOHN-BECKER, Bildnis einer Bäuerin (Mädchen mit Nase)
Date: c. 1900, Medium: Aquatint etching. Purchased with funds from the Levy Trust, Collection of McMaster Museum of Art, McMaster University

Other McMaster International Women’s Day Activities this week include:

It’s Time To End Violence Against Women
What: Working together with the Sexual Assault Centre for Hamilton and Area (SACHA), YWCA Hamilton is launching a campaign for a new project aimed at engaging young people to prevent violence against women on university and college campuses.
When: March 7, 2:30 p.m. to 4 p.m.
Where: McMaster University Student Centre Atrium

Not Leaving Anyone Behind: Anti-Racism & Intersectionality
McMaster University Anti-Violence Network workshop:
9 — 10:45 a.m.
Gilmour Hall, room 111
Registration: hres@mcmaster.ca or 905-525-9140, ext. 27581

Amplifying & Accelerating the Power of Womyn
speaker Kim Crosby, Artist, Activist, Consultant, Facilitator and Educator
hosted by School of Graduate Studies and the Anti-Violence Network of McMaster University
11:30 a.m. — 12:30 p.m. Convocation Hall
For information or to discuss accessibility requirements, contact Vilma Rossi rossiv@mcmaster.ca or 905 525 9140 x24235

International Women’s Day Concert
by McMaster Women’s Vocal Ensemble
7:30 – 9:00 pm
Venue: MacNeill Baptist Church, 1145 King St. W., Hamilton, Canada
For more information: sota@mcmaster.ca or 905-525-9140, ext. 24246

Another Autumn of Museum Tours

A shot of work in progress by our work/study student Arjun who was busy reorganizing our watercolour pencils after two weeks of welcoming visitors for Lifelong Learning Week, Open Streets, and Culture Days tours.  Our retrospective exhibition of Takao Tanabe’s works on paper was the starting point for exploring landscape, drawing and watercolour painting. Visitors worked their creative magic making their own landscapes.

Our thanks to all of those who attended and to our volunteers
– now the clean up begins!

  

Three Artists Talk: Janice Gurney, Nestor Kruger and Yam Lau

Conspiracies of Illusion installation view with work by (from left) Yam Lau, David Reed, Nestor Kruger, Janice Gurney and Blinky Palermo, McMaster Museum of Art

Join us this Thursday September 20, 6-8 pm, when the McMaster Museum of Art presents a joint talk by Canadian artists Janice Gurney, Nestor Kruger and Yam Lau who all have works in the Museum’s current exhibition, Conspiracies of Illusion. The artists will be speaking about their photo and moving image-based works in the show as well as their individual artistic practices. This is a free public event.

Conspiracies of Illusion is an exhibition exploring the ways in which artists challenge our understanding of time and space through their work.

ARTISTS’ BIOS

Janice Gurney, Screen, 1986, cibachromes, Photostats and Plexiglas
Dimensions installed: 97.8 x 363 cm, Courtesy of the artist

Janice Gurney was born in Winnipeg, and currently lives in Toronto. She received her BFA and MVS respectively at the University of Manitoba and the University of Toronto, and her PhD from Western University, London, Ontario in 2012. Gurney has been exhibiting since the late 1970s, with solo exhibitions in Canada and the United States.  A survey exhibition Sum over Histories, 1994, was organized by the Winnipeg Art Gallery, toured to the Power Plant, Toronto; Mackenzie Art Gallery, Regina; Glenbow Museum Calgary; and the London Regional Art and Historical Museums (now Museum London). Her work has been included in numerous group exhibitions internationally,  and is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Winnipeg Art Gallery, The Robert McLaughlin Gallery, McIntosh Gallery (Western University), University of Toronto, Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, Museum London, and the Canada Council Art Bank. She is represented by Wynick/Tuck Gallery in Toronto.

Nestor Kruger, Analog (Three Cameras Through a Model of Haus Wittgenstein, for single channel), 2005, Single channel digital video with sound, Sound design: Stephen Murray, Courtesy of the artist

Nestor Kruger was born in Montreal, 1965. He studied at the Ontario College of Art and Design and Sheridan College and is based in Toronto. Kruger has been exhibiting since the mid-1990s, with solo exhibitions in Toronto (including the 10th Present Tense solo installation at the Art Gallery of Ontario in 1999), Montreal, Vancouver, Windsor, Ottawa, Texas, and Berlin, and numerous national and international groups exhibitions including Mosai Canada at the Seoul Museum of Art, Korea, 2003; Emotion Eins at the Frankfurter Kunstverein, 2004; the 7th Sharjah Biennial, United Arab Emirates, 2005; and Projections at the Justina M. Barnicke Gallery, University of Toronto, 2007. Kruger’s work is represented in the collections of the National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario and DekaBank, Frankfurt. He is an assistant professor in the School of Fine Arts and Music, University of Guelph. He is represented by Katzman Kamen Gallery, Toronto

Yam Lau, Between the Past and the Present: A Chinese Scholar’s Studio, 2012, computer-generated animation, digital video, Duration: 8 mins 39 sec, Courtesy of the artist

Yam Lau was born in Hong Kong. He received his MFA from the University of Alberta, and is now based in Toronto, where he is an associate professor of painting at York University. His most recent works combine video and computer-generated animation. Lau also publishes regularly on art and design, for ETC Montreal, Espace, Montreal and C International, and has exhibited his work widely in Canada, USA, Europe and China. He is a co-founder of the community based art project “Donkey Institute of Contemporary Art” in Beijing, China.

Takao Tanabe Talk revisited in pics and video

Last Friday afternoon at the McMaster Museum of Art, Takao Tanabe gave a frank and fascinating talk about his art, his career and pivotal moments in his life, as he guided more than seventy visitors through his exhibition, a retrospective of works on paper.

Here are some photos from the tour:

 

 

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And for those who missed the event and would like to hear the artist speaking about his work, check out the video below from Takao Tanabe’s 2007 exhibition at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection
…then come see the current exhibition at McMaster.

Gary Spearin Explores iNiFiniTi and McMaster’s Vaults

Gary Spearin with his iNifiNiTi installation at McMaster Museum of Art

This summer, Gary Spearin steps into two roles in McMaster Museum of Art exhibitions – artist and guest curator. As artist, he presents his installation iNifiNiTi in the Museum’s Panabaker Gallery. As curator, he has mined the MMA vaults, drawing on contemporary works from McMaster’s collection for the complementary installation, PAINTING BEYOND a body of views

Both exhibitions run May 12 – August 18, 2012 with a Public Reception on Friday June 1, 6-8 pm, when the artist/curator will be present. Don’t miss it!
_________

Since 2007 Gary Spearin has been producing a series of paintings that are displayed as an installation titled iNifiNiTi, which he has conceived as an optical device to explore and to visualize the resonant dynamics of time and our experience and perception of it.

While the presentation in any given gallery installation is variable, determined by factors such as available wall space, they are always installed in a uniform grid, and in an order decided by the artist only during the hanging. The grid serves as a formal grounding structure contrasting with the spontaneous order of placement. Within it there are infinite possibilities for reading the works individually or the installation as a whole.

The individual titles are derived from dates (month/day/year) of sometimes personal significance but mostly of random selection, and always unrelated to the date of their making. The surfaces of the paintings are so visually rich and intricately detailed that any one of them invites endless, obsessive viewing, as does the whole of the installation. Each work possesses a unique character, yet the identity of individual works can easily be obscured by the overwhelming nature of the group. The whole is the sum of its parts and each of the parts is a self-contained whole. Spearin is painting pictures of ephemeral, infinite dimensions that exist beyond those which we can perceive or know.

- Excerpt from the exhibition catalogue essay “Picture Infinity”; David Liss, Artistic Director and Curator, Museum of Contemporary Canadian Art, Toronto.

iNifiNiTi,  the exhibition and accompanying catalogue, is a collaboration between Museum London and the McMaster Museum of Art.

As a complementary installation, PAINTING BEYOND a body of views, Gary Spearin has selected works from the McMaster Museum of Art collection by Art & Language, Marcel Duchamp, Richard Hamilton, Alfredo Jaar, Leon Kossoff and Gerhard Richter to disrupt categorization in a purposeful way and thereby explore “the enigma of things.”

Gary Spearin was born in Hamilton; he studied at the Nova Scotia College of Art and the University of Guelph. This is Spearin’s first Hamilton public gallery exhibition since 1995. He currently lives at Lake Huron between Kettle Point and Blue Point and teaches at Fanshawe College in London.

Mac Photo Club Exhibition and Awards at Museum

The McMaster Museum of Art’s Education Gallery is the venue for the 2012 Mac Photo Club Photo Show and Competition later this month.

Mac Photo Club is a McMaster Student Union Club and their 2012 competition was open to all McMaster students. They received an overwhelming number of entries and all will be displayed in the MUSC Marketplace March 19 from 11 am – 3 pm. At that time, the public will be invited to vote for their favourites.

The top photos of the competition will be displayed in the McMaster Museum of Art’s Education Gallery, March 28th until March 30th.

Prizes will be awarded to the top 3 photos – one will be decided by the highest number of public votes and the other two will be judged by professional photographer Ron Scheffler and the Mac Photo Execs. The winners will be announced at the Mac Photo Gallery Reception on March 29, 5:30 – 6:30 pm at the McMaster Museum of Art.

Art and Science Unite in Biotech Research Exhibit at McMaster

Clint Wilson, detail from LOGOS Project, Phyciodes Pulchella Cascades, chromogenic print,152.4 x 91.44 cm, 2010

This Thursday Perceptions of Promise: Biotechnology, Society and Art, an exhibition of original artwork and essays that explore the complex legal, ethical and social issues of advancements in life science technologies, stem cell research in particular, makes its Ontario debut at the McMaster Museum of Art. The project brings together nine internationally recognized visual artists with scientists and scholars.

The touring exhibition was inspired by ongoing conversations between a group of artists, scientists, philosophers, sociologists and legal scholars who attended a three-day stem cell research workshop in April 2010. The exchange of ideas extended beyond the workshop to correspondence, drawings, scientific images and research.

Included in the exhibition are a sculpture made from the scans of human embryos, a tent with images of human cells and drawing of one of the artists’ chromosomes.

Without supporting one view of stem cell research over another, the artists prompt viewers to ponder current forms of biotechnology. Rapid advancements in biomedical research are challenging traditional views of the human body and its environment. Genetic and stem cell research, for example, may bring significant improvements to human health and welfare. However, these innovations also raise complex ethical, legal and social questions that society must face. Art has an important role to play in the discourse around biotechnology because it can offer unique articulations of the polarized and often emotionally charged responses the public has towards technology.

The nine artists in the exhibition are:
Derek Besant
Sean Caulfield
Liz Ingram
Bernd Hildebrandt
Shona Macdonald
Royden Mills
Mariléne Oliver
Daniela Schlüter
Clint Wilson

The exhibition continues at the McMaster Museum of Art until March 31, 2012.

Join us for an opening night PANEL DISCUSSION February 9 from 6 – 8 pm

Stem Cell Culture: Biomedical Research, Popular Culture and Art
Moderator:
Sean Caulfield – Artist, Professor, University of Alberta
Panelists:
Derek Besant – Artist
Roger Jacobs – Professor & Associate Chair (Undergraduate), Developmental Biology, Genetics & Molecular Biology, McMaster University
Patangi Rangachari – Professor Emeritus, Health Sciences, McMaster University
Daniela Schlüter – Artist

Sean Caulfield and Royden Mills, End Point, installation view, 2010

More information at WWW.PERCEPTIONSOFPROMISE.COM

Carl Beam Film and Directors’ Talk this Thursday

Join us for a screening of documentary film,  Aakideh: The Art & Legacy of Carl Beam followed by a Q&A with Directors Robert Waldeck and Paul Eichhorn, this Thursday January 12 from 6:00-7:30 pm

‘Aakideh’ is an Ojibwe word meaning brave or brave-hearted. Artist Carl Beam earned a reputation for being fearless, visionary and ultimately, unforgettable. From his early years growing up on Manitoulin Island to his turbulent years spent at a residential school, this documentary explores how these early experiences not only impacted Beam’s life but also his art.

Carl Beam (1943-2005) was born in M’Chigeeng (WestBay) on Manitoulin Island. Of Anishinaabe (Ojibwa) heritage, the artist was instrumental in challenging the marginalization of contemporary Aboriginal art inCanada. He became noted for his manner of linking Indigenous world views to broad cultural, historical, and political concerns in order to provoke contemplation of multiple realities and our collective place in the cosmos. In the process, he developed an aesthetic approach more akin to the expressive layering of Rauschenberg than the traditional forms of Anishinaabe ‘WoodlandSchool’ painters. Beam has been credited with opening doors for First Nations artists by becoming the first to sell a work to the National Gallery of Canada for its contemporary collection.

Join us for this Free event presented as part of the Visiting Artist Program, a collaboration between the McMaster Museum of Art and McMaster School of the Arts.