UMFA

After our last disastrous museum experience, I am pleased to report that we had a wonderful time last Saturday at the Utah Museum of Fine Arts on the U of U campus.

The UMFA is free every first Wednesday and every third Saturday AND on the third Saturday there is a free family art project. We liked to do the project, but what we really like is checking out one of the exhibit themed backpacks from the front desk! Each backpack comes with a folder full of guided questions to help you explore the museum, plus hands on activities, paper and crayons, and even a take home packet with extra fun.

This time we checked out the large sculpture backpack. We started outside by the "driftwood" statue of a horse. Did you know it's really made out of copper with a patina? We got to compare a twig and a copper "twig".

We headed inside and took turns freezing in different poses to try and capture movement like this artist did.

Here's Juno holding a small rendition of "The Thinker" when we were studying a bust by Matisse.

We took a detour in the Egyptian section where the girls had fun learning how mummies were made.

Now comes my favorite part--the contemporary art exhibit. I love contemporary art. I feel like I could do that stuff! The girls took turn arranging small wooden blocks to create their own sculpture, like the one you can see in the background behind Juno (next picture).

Tempe studied this sculpture made out of old bike tires and then made on of her own out of black pipe cleaners!

This is the full contents of the large sculpture backpack. There was a materials box and every sculpture we visited was represented by something the girls could feel--a piece of marble, a twig vs a copper "twig", a piece of bike tire, brass, etc. The girls loved getting to feel what the sculptures feel like!

And here they are getting the "kids' eye view" of these pink streamers in the large gallery downstairs!

We had so much fun exploring the museum with the large sculpture backpack and can't wait to go back and try another! The girls all really loved exploring their take home packets too--those came with packets of Model Magic clay so they could sculpt their own work of art!