Guest blogger: Art Immersion -- Books as Museums

Dear Aunt Debbie,

It's portfolio time again!  This morning, I collected two class sets of writing portfolios from my juniors and seniors, and will be putting my nose to the grindstone in grading and commenting on them for the next couple of weeks.  Which means, of course, that it's time for some excellent guest bloggers.

First up is our regular guest Denise, who has written here before about picture books that raise social awareness and picture books that capture the essence of summer.  Here she is:

One of the first museums my husband and I took our daughter Jacinta to was the Museu Picasso in Barcelona. It was on a narrow, cobbled, pedestrian street in a Gothic-style brick building with a courtyard; we were fortunate to have come on the one free day of the week, and the line was nowhere as long as the line to Target-free Fridays at the MOMA in Manhattan.

Jacinta was a little over two, so she wasn’t as excited as we were to enter this sacred place. She did look intently and excitedly at a few paintings in the first parlor and made her parents proud by answering questions like, what colors do you see? And what shape is this? After looking at a wall of work, she wiggled out of her dad’s arms and started roaming around, pushing through people’s knees and bumping into their bags. At this point, Sean and I took turns watching her and looking at the decades of work on display.

This was her first immersion in art history, and to remember it, we bought a souvenir: a board book called Painting with Picasso by Julie Merberg and Suzanne Bober. In this book, lyrical, rhyming lines on one side complement a painting on the other side. On the first page: “An artist paints people / in all different places, / and captures the feelings / that show in their faces.” The painting beside this is “Interior with a Girl Drawing." Most of the other nine paintings include young children; each page is saturated with vibrant colors. It is so much easier to appreciate each individual painting when it sits between your hands. And there is an entire series of books like this one that showcase other artists such as Van Gogh and Matisse; the series is called Mini Masters and is published by Chronicle.

It’s been over two years since our trip to Barcelona, and now that we have a two-year old boy, Emerson, visiting a museum has become much more challenging and arduous. We have been to the Cloisters in Manhattan and the Brooklyn Museum, but during these visits, we didn’t really engage with the art work; we did family activities and briefly glanced at some works that caught our eyes. But I’ve realized that we don’t need to visit museums to appreciate art; we can adopt our own artists and fills our shelves and walls with art. And that was my mission this Christmas, to have a renaissance of art appreciation at home.

The Metropolitan Museum of Art publishes some of the most amazing books that expose children to centuries of art. The books I (aka Santa) bought are:

My First ABC, a board book with vibrant paintings spanning continents and centuries; each page zooms in on an object beginning with a particular letter. One of my favorites is: H h Hair; the subsequent painting focuses on the profiles of an Egyptian man and woman in a painting from Tomb of Ipuy, ca. 1279-1213 BC.

Museum Shapes: each section begins, What shape is… and is followed by a painting that focuses on that particular shape; on the next page, the shape, the word, and other excerpts from visual art. What’s unique about this book is that it includes architecture and textiles in addition to paintings.

Can You Find It? is a search and discover book that includes nineteen paintings and a list of details to find in each. The art work is stunningly detailed and finding the individual items is difficult; Jacinta is much better and finding things than I am – I really have to strain my eyes. One we looked at together is a painting of The Feast of Sada from Shahnama by Firdausi. The text beside it states: “In this painting of an outdoor feast, can you find: 1 box, 4 birds, 1 bear throwing a rock… 4 bottles, and 6 beards.” I love how poetic the list is. I also love how there is something in each work of art for both my daughter and son to recognize and appreciate.

The final book is not published by the Met. It is an instructional book:
I Love to Draw! by Jennifer Lipsey. It breaks down how to draw trees and dogs and cars in such a simple way that even I can draw these things.       

As the winter ensues and encourages us to stay in our living room, we will have many works of art to enjoy at our own leisure, without having to abide by museum rules. The kids can touch the pages, but not bend them, then march around and sing and scat while still being immersed in art.

Inspiring ideas!

Love, Annie

Merry Christmas!

Dear Aunt Debbie,

Christmas at my in-laws' house in Illinois!  The children are nestled all snug in their beds, my wrapping is done, there's a light layer of snow outside and plates of Christmas cookies jostling for space with the pies on the kitchen counter -- it's a lovely night.

Tonight, along with The Night Before Christmas, we read another favorite Christmas story (one we actually read all year round), and I found myself wishing for the other Christmas Eve book of my childhood, which I'm going to have to find for the girls next year.  To be honest, I should admit that Eleanor and I read these books; Isabel sat on Jeff's lap and directed him emphatically to read her
My Teeth and Olivia's Opposites. So she doesn't quite get Christmas yet.  It'll come.


Morris's Disappearing Bag was a gift from you to me in 1979 -- it's inscribed "To Annie -- With love from your disappearing aunt.  Love, Debbie."  It'll be out of print by now, I thought to myself, but it isn't -- a new edition came out in 2001.  I think this may be, like Noisy Nora, a book that Rosemary Wells did new, more brightly colored illustrations for in order to get it reprinted.  The cover image here is a little different from the one we have, but I'm sure it's essentially the same.

Morris is the youngest bunny in a family of four.  On Christmas morning, his brother Victor gets a hockey set, his sister Rose gets a beauty kit, and just as you're thinking oh no, a gender-role-reinforcing little Christmas book, Morris's other sister, Betty, gets a chemistry set.  Morris gets a bear.  The other siblings play with their own presents and with each others' ("And then Victor made himself beautiful and Betty played goalie and Rose invented a new gas."), but no one will let Morris play with their toys because he's too young, and no one wants his bear.  Morris droops.  But then!  Under the Christmas tree, Morris finds an overlooked package.  Inside is a Disappearing Bag -- he crawls in and becomes invisible.  A couple of funny pages follow where Morris's siblings can't find him, but the tips of his ears or tail are showing, so your kid can.  Morris pops out of the bag, lets his silings jump into it, and plays with all of their toys on his own until bedtime.

There is something very satisfying about this little book -- it's so good about jealousy and sharing and siblings, and Rosemary Wells can't be beat for drawing droopy bunnies.  It's a Christmas story, but I've never thought of it as relegated to Christmas-time reading.  I'm glad it's still around.

As in your house, I grew up with the King James version of Jesus's birth as one of the traditional Christmas Eve readings.  We always referred to it as "the part in the Bible where Jesus gets born."  In our house, the book was published by the Metropolitan Museum of Art: the Bible passages illustrated with reproductions of Old Masters' paintings.  In the absence of the book at the moment, I'm trying to figure out which it must have been.  This is my best guess.

There's a current version out, however, which I plan to get in the next year: The Christmas Story (Metropolitan Museum of Art).  There's something appropriate about having the story illustrated by multiple artists, from multiple years and countries -- no one person has a lock on what the Holy Family looked like, and there are such great and differing depictions of the animals as well.

And now I'm off to bed, so Santa can come.  Happy Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

Love, Annie