K.I.D.S. Art Education Program: Inventions and Re-inventions

K.I.D.S. Art Education

Kentler International Drawing Space is a non profit arts organization located in Red Hook, Brooklyn.

The K.I.D.S. Art Education program brings innovative art-making experiences to students, teachers, and families in and around Red Hook. With our diverse community in mind, Kentler is committed to using contemporary art as a platform for inquiry, exploration, and empowerment. All programs are based on Kentler's exhibitions of drawings and works on paper.

Our programming includes School, After-School, Residency, and Drawing Together family weekend workshops.

Friday, April 30, 2010

Inventions and Re-inventions

What is an invention? What is a re-invention? Last fall children from local public schools in Red Hook explored these questions during our school programs focusing on the show "Reinventing Silverpoint."

Silverpoint was a labor intensive process, dating the pencil, involving using a stylus on a prepared ground. The contemporary artists shown at K.I.D.S. stretch and explore the medium in unexpected ways re-inventing its expressive qualities. During gallery visits students considered the ideas of invention and re-invention by inventing a place for a specific activity: running, playing, jumping, ice skating, swimming, reading, sleeping...And by re-inventing new ways of using ordinary materials.

Later, back in the classroom, our teaching artists worked with students to think about different ways to connect their places. As a result, the student's individual places ended up becoming a part of a larger place consisting of many smaller places. Sound familiar? One was even given a name: Brooklyn Big City: