This weekend, I went to the Andres Institute of Art in Brookline, New Hampshire. The institute is actually Bear Mountain, which artist Paul Andres owns. The mountain has artwork (mainly sculptures and metal-art) located all over it, which can be accessed via hiking trails. Although I am not an artistic individual, I found the institute very interesting. The hiking involved made it more palatable than an hour or two of straight-up art. Making art palatable for kids and teens can be hard, but here are some tips to help make art fun.
- Go to somewhere like the Andres Institute of Art. As a I said, the hiking helps make the art more fun. There are many other places like this, such as Art-to-Walk in Melbourne, Australia, NYC, and Venice. At Art-to-Walk, you walk around the city looking at the local art, ranging from sculptures to street art. These types of interactive art tours help keep kids and teens amused, by giving them other things to look at while moving from piece to piece.
- If you are going to go to an art museum, make sure that it is an institution that caters to a variety of different types of art. Unless you have a family that all enjoys the same exact genre of art, you are probably going to become bored with a genre-specific museum in a matter of minutes. No one wants to look at portraits for hours.
- Don’t allow your kids and teens to use devices such as iPods, cell phones, etc. I know this may seem a bit counter-intuitive, but there is a good reason for it. If I am playing iPod games the whole time, I probably am not taking the time necessary to enjoy the artwork. This means that: 1) it’s a waste of your money, and 2) I will become bored even more quickly, because when I do look up at the art, it will have no value to me.
- Keep moving. If one person wants to stay in one room for a long time, let them. But don’t make the whole family sit there with them. If you keep moving, boredom will set in more slowly, because there is always new sensory stimulation (even if it is quickly determined to be boring). I would rather watch the trailers to 50 boring movies than one whole boring movie.
- If you can, bring snacks. Food makes everything better.
Next time you are considering a family trip, maybe an artistic adventure will catch your fancy. Hopefully, these tips can help you make an art museum a viable option!