A program gets children and parents making art together

A few dozen children and their parents breathed life into piles of wood scraps at the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts Sunday afternoon, transforming simple cubes, dowels, arches, triangles, and wedges into a ballerina, two Santa Clauses, several birds, a family walking a dog, a skateboarding park, and an island scene with palm tree and sailboat.

The families were taking part in one of a series of programs offered free to all schoolchildren in the Philadelphia public schools each weekend at the academy since September - and with paid admission to others.

Each week features a different instructor and workshop, with recent subjects including wearable art, African masks, animal anatomy, and hip hop dance.

Judy Ringold, director of museum education at the academy, said the premise of the program is that when families do things together, children do better in school. Ringold said she also hopes the families take away the message that art museums are fun, and that "art is an important and significant activity for everybody, whether you want to be an artist someday or not."

Evelyn Quan discovered the program when she went searching for a gift to give to her niece Anna, a budding artist, for her 11th birthday last September.

"If this is what she wants, I want her to have the exposure" to different kinds of art, Quan said.

Anna Quan, of Northeast Philadelphia, built and painted a waitress wearing an apron and holding a tray with a cake. She said she had in mind an aunt who works in a bakery.

Asked what she thought of the workshops, Anna said, "I love them. There aren't any [art] classes at my school." She attends a Catholic school.

Elizabeth Nickles, a sculptor and academy graduate who led the workshop on Sunday, asked the students to build people and to think about balance and construction and what the people might be doing. She showed an example she had built of a girl at her birthday party, wearing a party hat.

Some of the children created people but many were inspired to make other things, including a playground, a rocket ship, and a combination boat/airplane. The children glue-gunned the wooden pieces together and then painted them with tempera paints.

Sam Bradstreet, who brought his two daughters and his son, said he appreciated that the workshop appealed to all ages of children.

His daughter Charlotte, 7, said she was unsure at first she would enjoy the day's project, but she was soon having fun creating Top Hat Sam.

Barbara Dallao said she has a revolving art gallery at her Art Museum area home for the projects made by her daughter Anna, 5, and son Alfredo, 10, from the workshops. Anna created a ballerina wearing an orange leotard with white polka dots, a pink tutu, and a purple bow in her hair, while Alfredo created a likeness of skier Lindsey Vonn.

"I like to see my children doing something that they find fun and engaging," Dallao said. "It's much more creative than sitting in front of a computer or a television."

Nickles said she was gratified that parents seemed to be enjoying themselves as much as the children did.

"I love that the parents are just as involved as the kids," she said. "People don't have the opportunity to make art in their lives."