If you walked past the Frederick R. Weisman Museum of Art on Sunday afternoon, chances are that you saw dozens of kids hard at work gluing crayons to pieces of posterboard.
No, Pepperdine has not extended enrollment to elementary children, if you were curious.
The event was Family Art Day, part of a two-day celebration that the Weisman Museum held to commemorate the opening of a new exhibit, “California Art.” A free reception took place Saturday night to showcase the new exhibit, so Family Art Day was just the final lacquer on a weekend full of excitement.
Since Frederick Weisman began collecting local art in the mid-1950s, his art collection has always been comprised of art that reflects the taste and talent of local Los Angeles artists. Striving to keep this legacy alive, Pepperdine hosts Family Art Day four times a year.
Children in attendance were taken on a tour of the Weisman Museum and asked to pay attention to the shapes and colors that they saw. Following this, the children were guided to the Gregg G. Suarez Plaza outside of the museum.
Crayons, paper and two Pepperdine art students wielding something like a hairdryer were provided as a media for the children’s creativity. The children arranged and affixed crayons in rows or circles or squares on paper, while the art students used the heater to melt the crayons and let the colors run into designs, yielding enchanting final products: art.
“Children will see the colors inside the museum and we hope that they use what they learn to create their own art [outside],” said ARTSReach coordinator and museum assistant Brittany Corbucci. Corbucci and other event coordinators make it a mission to create new and exciting ways for children to express themselves through art each time a Family Art Day event occurs.
