Camp Pollack

Broad Museum continues MSU summer art camp series in its new home

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Friday, June 14 — Starting next week, the
Broad Museum’s Summer Art Camp series will introduce local youngsters to the
world of contemporary art, supplanting traditional pine cone owl projects and
friendship bracelets with gallery-ready pieces created under the guidance of
professional art educators.



“This isn’t arts and crafts,” said Aimee
Shapiro, the director of education at the museum. “This is hands-on art. We
want children to think conceptually.”



Summer art camps on the campus of Michigan
State University began in 1985 at the Kresge Art Museum, but moved under the
Broad banner last year ahead of the museum’s opening in November. The camp will
have four sessions — doubling previous years’ due to popularity — with two classes
for grades 1 through 3, and two classes for grades 4 through 6. Each
session features 25 campers, and run from next week through mid-July.



Classes will be taught by Anne Grevstad-Nordbrock
and Emily Nott, along with a group of volunteers that include docents. Some Michigan
State University fine arts students will help out, too.



“I'll give direction, but I'm not going to
say this is how you get from point A to point B,” said Grevstad-Nordbrock, who
will make this summer her second as an art camp counselor. “It's a great
opportunity for children to do critical thinking, be creative and tap into
their artistic impulses.”



Each day will have campers looking at art,
including Broad’s “Pattern: Follow the Rules” exhibit and the museum's
architecture, and then having a discussion about it. They will then come back
to the education wing in the Broad and make art.



Some projects include drawing a comic
strip for the older campers, who will also get a tour of the MSU library's
comic book archives. Younger campers will get a chance to work with textile art.
At the end of each week, participants will have their work displayed in the
education wing of the museum, allowing them to their own opening — something
that takes some artists much longer to accomplish.



This is a
really special opportunity for kids in the Lansing area, Grevstad-Nordbrock said.


Grevstad-Nordbrock, who received her master’s
degree and in art history from the University of Wisconsin, taught at Lawrence
University in Appleton, Wisc. for three years.


“Some of the conversations I’ve had with
children about art rival those that I’ve had with college students,” she said. “Kids
are really smart and they're really perceptive.”



Grevstad-Nordbrock hopes this camp will
give campers a newfound appreciation for going to a museum and seeing a
connection between themselves and the works.



“(That way) there isn't this huge gulf
between them as sort of a small person and these big museum institutions,” she
said.



Nott, an MSU senior double majoring in the Residential College of Arts
and Humanities and arts education, will serve as an assistant teacher to Grevstad-Nordbrock.
She said going to art camp as a kid did all the things Grevstad-Nordbrock hopes
for these campers.



“That art exposure as a child shaped who I am,” Nott said. “Any time
I'm teaching, I really hope (the students) are not just making, but thinking. That's
something this camp really stresses.”



When asked if she would send her children to a camp like this, Nott was
emphatic.


“I want to
surround my kids with art,” she said. “And I think that the Broad is doing that
for parents.”


There are still some slots available. For more information or to
register, go to broadmsusummerartcamp.eventbrite.com.



Broad MSU Summer Art Camp 2013

Four one-week sessions, running June 17–July 12

$125 ($100 for week of July 1)

Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum

547 E. Circle Drive, East Lansing

(517) 884-3900


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