Visiting Children
Pose with Art
Young Art Critics
Discuss Works
Children Creating
Their Own Artworks
ARTColumbus and kidscommons, a Columbus, Indiana children's museum, co-sponsored an international mail art show in which children were encouraged to draw self-portraits or express ideas about the future. To participate, kids simply illustrated the theme and mailed the art. The call for entries was extended via the Internet and in national magazines and newspapers.
Nearly 140 of the 1,000 pieces of art entered in the American Mail Art 2000 Show were sent to Boorai: The Children’s Art Gallery which is affiliated with the University of Melbourne in Australia. Children from Argentina, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Italy, Japan, Mexico and the United States were represented, and the artwork was on display from May 22 to September 15, 2000.
Jan Deans, Director of the Early Learning Centre at the university, writes that the artwork was enjoyed by children, families, and a wide range of visitors, including early childhood teachers and administrators from China and Singapore. Nearly 700 people visited the exhibit which has inspired Australian professionals to begin collecting children's thoughts and ideas via the postcard format.
The images shown here are of Australian children seated below the display, discussing the mail art, and creating their own artwork. To find out more about the University of Melbourne’s Early Learning Center, visit http://www.edfac.unimelb.edu.au/LED/ELC/. The staff expects to extend the site in 2001, making the Boorai (The Children’s Art Gallery) section available for use as a teaching tool.
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Visiting Children Pose with Art |
Young Art Critics Discuss Works |
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Children Creating Their Own Artworks |
The Mail Your Art 2000 activity was created and written by Marilyn Brackney in collaboration with Belgian artist Guido Vermeulen. Working with Kidscommons, a Columbus, Indiana children’s museum, and ARTColumbus, a group of visual artists, Brackney posted the activity at The Imagination Factory. Thirty of the total American show entries were sent to Brussels, Belgium for display in April, 2000, and nearly 140 pieces of art were sent in August to BOORAI: The Children’s Gallery which is affiliated with the University of Melbourne in Australia.
Poster Recognizes Children’s Artwork
Kidscommons has just released a poster
that recognizes young artists who sent mail art to the museum for an exhibit
held in 2000. ARTColumbus and kidscommons were the American sponsors of the
Living in the Mirror Mail Art Show, an international mail art project for
children. In celebration of the new millennium, children were asked to draw
self-portraits or to create artwork that showed their hopes and dreams for the
future and mail their entries to the museum. More than 1,000 entries from
throughout the United States ane nine foreign countries were received.
Children who entered the American show recently received the posters
in recognition of their participation. In
addition to a list of
the names of all who entered, the posters feature selected children’s
artwork. The Columbus Area Arts Council (Regional Partner Organization), the
Indiana Arts Commission, the National Endowment for the Arts, and Pentzer
Printing provided financial support for printing the mail art
documents.
CLICK HERE TO VIEW THE "LIVING IN THE MIRROR" MAIL ART PROJECT!
© 2000 Marilyn J. Brackney
Volume 14 No. 3
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