![]() Throughout the night, there was a buzz of mutual admiration as people excitedly shared their process – from rolling scraps of magazine pages into beads, to hand-painting designs onto silk scarves to rescuing zippers from thrift stores and transforming them into flower brooches. For those that consider themselves artists in the kitchen, there was a cookie swap of all sorts of delicious treats (and lucky for the rest of us, plenty of extras to snack on throughout the night!). The diversity of mediums was incredible – purses made from crocheted plastic bags, hand-stamped holiday cards, etchings, charcoal drawings, hand-printed wrapping paper, ‘zines, photos, jewelry and so much more. On Tuesday night, after the Museum closed its doors to the public, staff, AmeriCorps members and volunteers gathered for our first annual “Museum Craftland.” Inspired by Providence’s popular downtown holiday sale, we transformed the Assembly Space into a celebration of our creative community and workplace.Īlmost 20 staff members came with creative work to show off, barter and sell, and many others came simply to shop and enjoy. It is kind of a secret, though, how we channel that creativity in our personal time. It’s no secret that members of the Providence Children's Museum staff community are a creative bunch – thinking up imaginative activities and programs and creative solutions for exhibits. This post was contributed by Carole Ann Penney, the Museum’s queen of all things crafty, who recently inspired us to celebrate our creations and the creative process. While I was setting up my studio, I thought it might be a nice idea to take the big chair along and put it in the Museum. There I had an actual studio in one of the rooms of the Museum and would welcome children into my studio to work with clay, my primary medium. Then an opportunity to work at the new Children's Museum in Pawtucket came along. I went mostly into schools and the local prison. This meant that I would design and implement art projects in educational institutions around the state. Not long after that I got a job at the RI State Council on the Arts as an Artist-in-Residence. Some would interact with her easily others were so scared they wouldn't come in our house. The children in the neighborhood would come over to our house to play and see her. She had a peaceful face with a smile that looked like the moon. With very little carpentry skills and some experience with sewing I had learned as a child, I proceeded to make a huge doll chair with plywood, fabric, and upholstery stuffing. My friend observed this and quietly said: "There are never enough laps to go around."Ī lightbulb went on in my head, and I decided to make a Lap Chair, where my children could go when they needed safety and security and I didn't have time to sit down with them. They were terrified of her and were seeking the only safety they knew. She and I were sitting in our kitchen while the children, ages 4 and 6 1/2, struggled to get into my lap. An older German friend was visiting at our home in Providence. This post was contributed by Providence sculptor, illustrator, painter and storyteller Diana Jackson, who created the Museum’s beloved Estrella.Įstrella, the huge woman chair who now lives at the Children's Museum in Providence, was conceived 35 years ago.Īt the time I was a young mother and emerging artist. ![]()
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