We braved the shamrock festooned throngs (uptown for the St Patricks Day parade) on the subway to get to the Whitney for an artist led Family Art workshop, by fabric artist Elaine Reichek. The workshop began, as these things usually do, by looking at her work. The Biennial was packed on a Saturday afternoon, but 15 children and their parents, sat cross legged on the floor of the gallery where Elaine's installation of embroidery pieces based on Mythical stories was located.
Elaine spoke very eloquently to the children, about her work, after she told the story of Adriane and Theseus and the Minotaur.
On the way out we stopped in the next room, which was devoted to an installation of an LA based artist. She had filled her space with everything she owned. The children were most curious to play the Xylophone, and to ask what was in the cardboard box marked spiders. She answered, "Spiders." And proceeded to open the box and pull out many stuffed spiders that she had made.
Back in the art studio at the Whitney, Elaine began by going through many art images inspired by the mythical characters and creatures she was inspired by. She showed everything style from Romantic period of beautiful sad Ariadne to "buff" (as Max called them, minotaurs taken from modern video games. Fun, and all the children found images that they connected to and were inspired by in the piles of copies of the images put out on the table for children to use.
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| Table full of inspiring images, colored tape, markers, pencils and pens in the Whitney's art studio. |
Next, Elaine said the project would involve the children creating their own mythological story and making a book, that is illustrated and bound in the next hour.
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Max's mythological story was about a mad scientist who created the terrifying minotaur. I love that Max posed
for two of the characters he wanted to include. I made a quick sketch of him, and he used the sketch as a reference of the pose to make his drawing. |
--Monica Forrestall
