Theres a special challenge in coordinating collaborative art projects. Working together to create a work of art to be shared with a larger audience can be fulfilling though its tough to get past the fact that people make art in different ways. Many kids love bringing their creations home, many adults like to be particular about process. Id like to compare two classes at the Rubin where the main projects are collaborative.
The Little Explorers Club is a new class weve started at RMA based around monthly imaginary expeditions to explore diverse terrains (jungles, rivers, etc). On Wednesday mornings three to five year olds and their adult friends use the museum and its art collection as inspiration for a large collaborative landscape collage, layered felt projects, stamping, and craft making. On the last week of each month they work on individual projects to take home. Its been wonderful to have the collaborative art works hanging in the classroom and promoting group work with a family audience brings up great conversations about how not everything we do and make is ours alone.
In another program I co-lead, Auspicious Stitches, an adults-only fabric arts workshop where the goal is also collaborative art making inspired by the RMA collection, I find it easy to get adults to join a group project but difficult to get them to literally work simultaneously on the same piece. They much prefer making their own parts and stitching them together.
Would any one like to share their experiences with individual versus group art making at museums?
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