We talked to Caroline Goeser, W.T. and Louise J. Moran Chair of the Department of Learning and Interpretation, and Elizabeth Roath Garcia, Intergenerational Programs Specialist, about the Houston Museum of Fine Arts and how it is pushing the limits and breaking stereotypes for what a museum should be just in time for Spring Break and Summer Vacation.
Why should parents take their children to the Fine Arts Museum?
C: Something we have found with research is that people feel like, “Oh my God, my kids are gonna knock over a piece of art.” From our perspective that’s always a surprise because honestly that never happens. Nobody would ever run that risk. So we want to reach out to the public to allow them to feel welcome here, and we really want families to feel welcome. That’s a major initiative of ours, and with the programs that we have during the spring and summer, we’re getting more and more successful in drawing in really good crowds. So I think hopefully that kind of myth about kids and art museums that it doesn’t really work is going to dissipate.
E: We do see families coming in, and the interactions that they’re having in the galleries with or without a program, they’re making a memory that they’re going to take with them, and they’re going to want to come back and just explore a little more. It’s almost impossible to go through the entire museum in one day because we are so big. But just to say, “We’re going to go for an hour, and just experience and look at something different than we usually see,” that’s a great experience.
What your favorite thing that you have upcoming spring and summer?
C: I think for me for Spring Break, it’s Start Your Engines! (Feb 21- May 30). We’re having something new here which we’re very excited about- it’s an exhibition of vintage cars and motorcycles called Sculpted in Steel, and we’re very excited about that.
E: Houston is such a car culture, and everyone is so excited about cars and just seeing what people are driving. Every visitor can actually come to our studio during spring break and build their own art deco inspired car. We’ve created an amazing template that they can do and then decorate, and I am so excited to see where the imagination takes it. It’s definitely a project I can see parents and dads doing as well, so it’s definitely not just a kids-only project. And you know when the excitement of the staff gets to a certain point, this is going to be a slam dunk project for everyone.
That sounds like a good bonding experience for the parents and children!
E: Right, because a lot of the time the parents are like, “No, no the kids can do it,” but I think this is a project where we might have to tap some parents on the shoulders and say, “you can do it too! You can take this project home and finish it, Dad!”
That’s great because those are all such fun activities, and I feel like when people think of art museums they don’t think of fun. So how does this museum combine fun and education?
C: One of our major initiates right now is to be more engaging as a museum and to communicate to visitors that the experience can be fun and it can involve participation. You and your family can be completely involved with an activity at a museum, and it’s not just about going and looking and behaving and not touching and all of that.
E: We try to provide as much choice for the families when they visit, whether they want a meditative self-guide, because you can be quiet when you go to the museum. Or if you want to go to the studio and get hands on with music blasting or an art project, or if they want to do a story book circle, we just try to provide as many opportunities for them to learn in the style that they want to learn that day.
So it’s about individualization?
C: Yes, and we find that families often want that. Families often have children of different ages, and they’re coming and would love to have something for each member of their family while also be doing something together.
So what's one of the most popular exhibits that you have here for families?
E: So every summer we do a post card project where children are invited to fill it out and say, “Dear blank, this is what I saw today at the fine arts museum,” and we actually mail those post cards out. But it ends up a great survey of what the children or families remember, and I will say anything that’s gold the kids just go nuts for, and I think it’s because it’s a precious metal and its shiny and it’s not something to see every day. And that’s sort of shocking for me because for me I think it’s going to be a big sculpture, but it’s the gold
So how does this museum stand out from the rest?
C: We are doing something new this summer, and we feel like this is going to be another choice the people can have because we’re designing something for our very youngest artists, so this is for infants and toddlers. That means that we really serve from 0 to 18 and we really give people options if they have kids from all ages.
Can you tell me what that’s going to be about?
E: I Its brand new so we’re still working out some of the details. I had a baby 5 months ago, and when I was on maternity leave I kept looking for options that I could take my son to even though he was really young. Yeah, we can go to the library or we can go to the Children’s Museum, but I never was finding the art opportunity, so when I got back I said, “Caroline, let’s do this.” And I have two works of art that my son made from paint that were my inspiration for studio projects, and he was 4 months old when he made them, but he’s really intrigued and excited about touch and looking and contrasting colors, and that’s where were building from. And this way you also get a memory from your experience that’s also tactile that you can take home.
So we’ll have studio painting, but then we will also have options for our littlest artists to be in the galleries and look and explore the works of art, and we’re really focusing on multi-sensory activities. I think it’s important for families to realize that you can take a 4 month old to the museum, and it’s okay. We have the nicest staff and guards here and I know some people are afraid, “well what if my baby starts to cry?” But that’s okay here. It’s fine, there’s spaces that you can go and sit and calm your baby down.
C: We do actually have a youth gallery downstairs called the Kinder Foundation Education Center Gallery, and we have youth art there. We are thinking about ways in which we can run shorter exhibitions through in a short amount of time if people are willing to give up their art for a week and we can display it.
What’s your favorite part of the museum?
C: I love American art and there’s a gallery of art from the early 20th century, and I just love it. There’s a Georgia O’Keeffe painting that’s so amazing, and the colors are beautiful, and it just resonates with me.
E: I am a huge fan of our sculptured art, especially as the weather gets better. It’s so nice to walk around and see some really amazing art by some amazing artists and to be able to hear the birds and feel the breeze and be surrounded by art.
That’s something I don’t think people think of when they think of art museums- nature and being outside in the environment.
C: That makes me think of our new campus because we’re expanding. The sculpture art is across the street, and expanding from the sculpture art is going to be our new Glassell School of Art. He’s the one who collected all the gold, actually. That is going to go up in 2017, and then across the street where the parking lot is now we’re going to have a building called the Kinder Building, and that will be for all of our modern and contemporary art. We’re really going to have more outdoor spaces, and it will be this kind of multi-sensory experience of coming to the museum being able to be outside and seeing art but also seeing spaces that are landscaped, so that that will be a part of the experience as well.
Is there anything else you want to mention that you’re excited about?
E: Every Thursday in June and July is when we have our Summer Art Explorers program from 11 to 2 and that’s really when we offer those choices between studio projects and sketching in the galleries, and that’s a window where families just take over the museum and have a great time here.
C: Last year we had about 9 thousand people come in those two months, so it’s really amazing.
E: Spring break is March 14th to 18th, Monday through Friday, and Wednesday the 16th is a members-only program where we have another studio project focused on Sculpted and Steel, but different from what the rest of the week has to offer, and for free as well!
