I’ve been wanting to visit the deCordova for a while now, and it’s on our summer list. (As a bonus, it’s free on summer weekdays, so if you’re anywhere in the area, now’s the time to visit!) This was my first visit, too, so all of us were exploring together. No photos were allowed inside, so you’ll have to imagine… we began on the third floor (because that’s where the bathrooms are!), so the first exhibit we saw was Ursula von Rydingsvard’s sculptures inside the museum. After we looked at them and talked a bit about them (some of them included cow intestines! except the intestines looked completely different in the two pieces–we figured it was the inside vs. the outside) the kids asked for their sketchbooks. We were the only ones in the gallery at the time, and we sat down on the floor, the kids looked at the sculptures, and drew. I really wish I could have taken a picture of them.

We visited all three main exhibits inside the museum. The focus is on contemporary art; I was disappointed that items from the permanent collection weren’t on display. One exhibit, Wall Works, had works inspired by items from the permanent collection, which were on display alongside. What a great opportunity to see how art and artists continue to inspire and inform each other.

The third exhibit inside is works by Andy Goldsworthy. He is best known, I think, for his land art. The museum is raising money to support Goldsworthy’s permanent installation “Snow House” in the sculpture park. The indoor exhibit included mainly photographs of his work with snow, as well as two works on paper that consisted of allowing large “urban, gritty” snowballs to melt on the paper, and then allowing the paper to dry. I predict that we’ll be experimenting with our own snowball art next winter!

The sculpture park is just fantastic. It’s such a wonderful thing to have a big open outside space when visiting museums with young children. We got to spread out a blanket and have a picnic lunch; the kids climbed a big rock for a while; we walked along a path outside with views of Flint’s Pond; and of course, we wandered around looking at sculpture.

This is Rain Gates. It’s sculpture you can walk around in:

Ozymandias dominates the front part of the park.

The kids took out their sketchbooks again. I’d also grabbed our traveling art box from the car.

Ursula von Rydingsvard also has a sculpture in the park, ence pence:

I liked this one, Apollo by Albert Paley, mainly because of the materials. It’s made of stainless steel and weathering steel, and N and I talked about how that means when the sculpture was first made, it would have looked different; it was meant for time and the elements to change it and weather it. We felt it to see how the steels were different in texture as well as in color.

And G likes trains, so this Mass Art Vehicle on tracks was right up her alley.

The deCordova website has a page devoted to visiting their museum with children. They also provide family activity kits that can be borrowed–some for outside, some for inside. We didn’t end up using any, because all the materials except the paper needed to be returned anyway (and we had plenty of paper), because we’re fairly good at talking about art by this point, and because I didn’t know if the clay/dough included in the kit was gluten-safe and, unfortunately, I have to consider that sort of thing. But it’s nice to know these resources are available, and the guards never once looked idgety about my children being in the galleries or drawing in sketchbooks. This museum is doing really well with making sure families and children feel welcome.

We weren’t able to see everything in the sculpture park–it’s so big! Which is just an excuse to go back again soon.

I saw in our local paper that a mill that now is home to many artist studios would be having Open Studio afternoons throughout the summer, so I thought I’d take the kids to see some artists at work.

Do you see the fish down by the baseboard, pointing the way? It’s made from reclaimed fence posts. That small studio, down at the end of a maze-like hallway, was crowded but exciting. Fence posts were strewn about the floor, there were large cutouts of seahorses, and the studio’s owner was “playing around” (her words) with mussel shells, a glue gun, and cardboard taped into a cone shape–she was making a Christmas tree. (“We have all those supplies,” I pointed out to the kids.) N noticed a painted piece peeking out from behind some other stuff leaning against a wall and wanted to know what kind of paint was used; he didn’t recognize it. It was spray paint. I told him in a couple of years I’d set him up with some.

Through that door we found a delightful painter who began to paint once he retired. He told me he’d always wanted to paint, but he’d never found the time, and also that he’s self-taught. His paintings were colorful and eye-catching and interesting for the kids to look at, and he was just as engaging as his work. He asked the kids if they were artists, too, and answered any questions they had.

The very first studio we entered belonged to glass-blowers. Between the broken glass on the floor, the hot ovens, and the numerous beautiful glass objects, I thought it best to hold G, so I didn’t get any pictures. But he gave us a tour and explained the process, including opening the 2500-degree oven just a crack to let the kids see how hot it has to be to melt glass. They were filling fall and holiday orders, or starting to–we passed lots of pumpkins and Christmas trees waiting to be shipped out. They also made long tubes of multi-colored glass, and around the corner, a bead-maker sliced them up and turned them into glass beads.

I won’t lie, parts of this adventure were very challenging. G didn’t want to hold my hand or stay with me; she wanted to touch all the pretty things she saw and run down the long mill hallways. The day we visited was only the second Open Studio of the summer, and it seemed clear that some people were surprised to actually see people, never mind children. There wasn’t really a contact number to call first to see if this was appropriate for children, and I suspect the answer, anyway, would be “it depends.” It really depends on the artist and the studio.

The instructor who teaches mostly middle school and high school kids was more than happy to see my kids, talking to them about the completely random things he had strewn about his studio (for drawing practice, I’m guessing). The studio where my oldest (who should know to keep his hands to himself) accidentally set off a staple gun, nearly giving me a heart attack–not so much for the children, clearly. And some were simply in between. I found the jeweler who learned his craft in his native Finland and does everything by hand to be fascinating, and while V looked sort of bored, I think he was pleased to discover, when he asked, that yes indeed, you can get jewelry made out of titanium.

Also, many studios weren’t open, because the artists weren’t there. But it was worth it to walk the hallways to the end anyway, because we got to see not only artwork hanging on the walls, but murals like this.

I think, all in all, I’d perhaps take another adult with me next time. But it was worthwhile to get a look at what a “real” artist’s studio looks like (in many cases, not so different from our room downstairs, but with better light and, sometimes, a coffee machine right nearby instead of upstairs) and observe that many of them use materials we use, too.

I want to demystify “artist” for my kids–I do think they consider themselves artists, and I don’t want that feeling to disappear as they grow older. There’s not this huge, staggering difference between the people making art in those studios and us making art over here, because we are all making art, and that’s the main thing.