For our field trip on Sunday I think we should head to the Oakland Museum of California as they are having a Day of the Dead celebration! Not only will we be able to see The Tree of Life and Death, a special exhibition, but there will be food, music, and other activities! It would be a great experience to learn more about Mexican-American culture, which is a interesting change as we work at the Asian Art Museum. It's from 12-4:30.
Sounds exciting! Hope we can make it.
Cami
Hey you guys! So last Sunday, we took a break from our usual business and spent time appreciating all the wonderful works in the galleries. We did art meditations in the Proximities exhibit, listened to an audio tour of a specific part of the museum, and listened to storytellers as we looked at art. Personally, my favorite part of the day was storytime. it totally brought me back to my younger years when storytime was a daily activity for me and i felt that it was a very inclusive, exciting way to experience art.
it was really great to spend time in the new gallery. i loved the barry mcgee piece of course, but in general, it was nice to see some contemporary asian art.
the storytelling tour was also really cool. although it is not really my thing, i can definitely see the appeal for all ages and the guy who lead the tour was super engaging and really good with little kids. i was surprised how many people showed up for that!
i also liked the audio tour a lot more than i thought i would. while in the persian/west asia gallery, i was surrounded by different types of really complex patterns. upon trying to sketch them, i gained a deeper understanding for the work and how much effort must have gone into it.
the concert also was a very popular event. it was cool seeing those amazing musicians too!
Hello! On Sunday to celebrate Filipino American History Month we set up a couple of tables with cool activities! The entire museum was CROWDED with guests, and it was a great experience. Originally, Natalie and I worked on making buttons with baybayin words on them, while Nell and Mar helped people food-stamp their bags. Eventually we switched off, and were able to experience both processes. Making the buttons was really fun and relaxing, getting into the hang of the button-maker was pretty easy and I loved seeing the expressions on kid's faces when they realized they were making actual buttons. Helping with the tote bags was much harder, people can be pretty demanding. I enjoyed it more though, I think it's the most exercise I've gotten in a long time since I stopped taking P.E. Also, it was nice to see the variety in the artwork. One lady refused to use anything but a heart-shaped potato, and another spent her entire time asking me to choose the vegetables for her.
Hey so I'm not completely sure if we're supposed do to a blog post about the FilAm celebration for tomorrow but I somehow have it ingrained in my mind that we do. So here goes!
On Sunday, the museum celebrated Filipino American History Month with a day-long festivity that encompassed the theme of food culture, mindful eating, and the Farm-to-Table mentality. Our job as interns was to direct the arts and crafts section of the celebration. There were two different art activities: button making (that included some baybayin) and printing with vegetables on reusable tote bags (which we had spent the week before planning). I thought the activities were a success! The printing activity was a bit messy and labor-intensive but absolutely fun. Everyone who came up to do the activity raved about how much they enjoyed themselves and loved their tote bags. So yay! Looking back, it might have been a little bit more manageable to do printing on a slightly smaller scale but I don't regret our choice to facilitate this activity one bit. I was really impressed by the creativity people had with the designs as well.
Photos: 1. This adorable little boy made a cute pin (but maybe not as good as the first grade rooks...) 2. Some of the beautiful and colorful veggies 3. Cami and Holly hard at work 4. The table of creation! 5. A little boy was a total genius and made a penguin out of zucchini
The celebration itself was also pretty incredible. Although I didn't get to walk around to see the presentations or food, we got to see a bit of the dance and heard some music. Overall, the day fostered a purely joyful quality. I liked that.
Some dancers on their procession in:
so i went into the printmaking studio at my school with some random food items i found around my house. i chose a carrot, a piece of ginger, and a pumpkin because i wanted to keep working with the fall theme. they didn't really turn out how i wanted to, mainly because i couldn't cut the vegetables open evenly. however, it was still a really fun process to try new things and use the printmaking materials at my school.
here are some pictures
Hey everybody! So on Sunday, we started brainstorming for ideas for the Fil-Am event happening next Sunday. The goal was to create an interactive activity that would portray the idea of "Farm to Table". We wanted our idea to be fresh, easy, and fun for all ages. After much deliberation, we decided on doing prints on tote bags using vegetables and fruits. The visitors can create their own design and bring the bags home as souvenirs! We embarked on a special journey to the farmers market, just a block away, to find a variety of fruits and vegetables that could potentially be used as stamps. We brought back the produce to the museum and tested everything out. We discovered that lemons, cabbage, and daikon worked best. I really enjoyed testing out this activity and I predict that it will be a huge success on Sunday.
These are a few examples of the tests that we did we the produce stamps. We used a variety of colored inks and acrylics (the ink works better though).
Hello, everyone!
This past Sunday, we all gathered at the museum to meet Christine Balza and her daughter, Marina. We got to test out some paper folding activities, learn about Filipino history, and practice writing our names in Baybayin. Then, we started to brainstorm for an activity for this Sunday when we'll be celebrating Filipino American History Month. With the theme as Mindful Eating, we started to rack our brains for ideas that were fun, accessible, and relevant. Nell came up with the awesome idea of using vegetables and fruits (I can hear Marisa saying this right now: "vegetables and fruits") as stamps. We then decided on using these stamps to decorate bags.
My assignment this week was to try out some new food stamps. When we were testing the vegetables on Sunday, I especially liked the textures of the leaves so I decided to use kale and parsley. The kale turned out amazingly-there's so much texture and it was pretty easy to use. The parsley was ok but a little flimsy. My other food of choice was ginger. I tried just stamping unmarked ginger but then I later cut it up to be star/flower shaped. (On the picture below from top to bottom: ginger, kale, parsley, and kale again)
I used mainly acrylic since that seemed to work well over the weekend. But I also tried out one of the kale prints with just a regular ink pad for rubber stamps. (It's the light green/blue one). I was surprised by how well they all turned out. I found the ginger to be a little bit boring so I tried carving it into the shape you see in the picture.
And the final results!
I think they turned out pretty well and I'm excited to see the project in action on Sunday!
On Sunday, everyone gathered around business-meeting style to discuss what project we would create to celebrate Filipino American History Month. The theme this year is Farms to Tables: Filipino Americans Then and Now. Our group spent a lot of time thinking of a project that would not only successfully incorporate this Farms to Tables theme, but would also be easy enough to have multiple people in a museum take part in.
What we decided on was canvas bags (very eco-friendly!) covered in vegetable and fruit prints. What I mean by this, is that people at the museum would be able to actively participate in the exhibit by covering assorted vegetables with paint and stamping them onto the bag. It's quite simple and very hands on, and just the idea of joining food and art is an amazing idea. We're taking the whole idea of Farms to Tables, and literally letting people take food from farms and incorporate them into bags, which are used on a daily basis.
It took us a little while to come up with the idea, but afterwards we headed to the Farmers Market down the street to buy some food to test out. This was one of the fun parts, we split up into groups and wandered down the stalls, looking for vegetables and fruits that would leave a nice imprint on the bag.
By the time we got back to the museum, we had a large assortment of fruits and vegetables.This was the really fun part. We tested out each product, judging based on how well it took to the paint as well as how the print looked afterward. I think our group favorites were the lemons, onions, and cabbages.
Some of the fruits and veggies didn't pass the test. They either didn't show up that well, or were to hard to use. Paint colors were also a tough decision. While originally our color scheme was going to be fall colors, we eventually decided on just using ones that looked good printed onto bags. I was a big fan of the red.
Finally, we printed each of our favorite fruits and vegetables onto a test bag. It turned out really well, if I may say so. I'm very proud.
1: Testing out our fruits and veggies. Nell is probably showing us something cool she found.
2: Our bag. It's very pretty.
-Cami
Sorry for posting so late guys! I got sidetracked and totally forgot. Anyway, on Thursday night we went over to Mutiny Radio where we had our very first show! I think we were all pretty nervous, my palms were super clammy and I was afraid that I wouldn't know what to say. None of us had ever been on air before, so this was nerve-wracking for sure.
I think we did pretty well. If I made a mistake, I definitely don't want to know about it anyway. I hope no one tells me.... Talking into a microphone was much easier than speaking in front of a crowd. There was no audience. I was surrounded by people I felt comfortable around and I got to talk about art. ALSO, another great thing about radio is that if I wore sweatpants and didn't take a shower, no one would even know!!! It felt like having a conversation with a couple of friends. I just find that amazing. I had so much fun, I'm really excited for next time.
A very cool night at Mutiny Radio