Research from the International Child Art Foundation has found that a child that is exposed to the arts acquires a special ability to think creatively, be original, discover, innovate, and create intellectual property – key attributes for individual success and social prosperity in the twentieth century.
This is why exposing my litttle ones to as much art and culture as possible is of great importance to us as a family.
By this I don’t mean sitting in front of text books flicking through endless pages of text, but actually getting out and exploring which for me is a far more interesting way of gaining knowledge.
This weekend we took a trip into Croydon to explore the Warhol Croydon exhibition that has been bought to the streets of Croydon by the award winning RISE Gallery.
The street exhibition has been inspired by the life and works of Andy Warhol who was a leading artist in the 1960’s pop art movement.
A group of extremely talented artists have come together to create twelve instillations taken from the inspiration of his work and placed across the whole town centre.
There are plenty of free guided walks that you can book online to take part in or go it alone like we did.
The tour took us from the bustling high street full of shoppers to super quiet derelict buildings, from high rise offices to beautiful gardens and the quirky streets of Surrey Street Market.
We stopped and took time to take in each piece and the children really loved telling me their thoughts…some not so complementary and some hilarious.
It’s wonderful to see what others see when looking at the same piece of art and there is nothing thing better than seeing things through a child’s eyes.
The tour took us some time as I didn’t follow the route as marked out which from experience I would suggest doing.
With the tour complete we headed off to the Whitgift and Centrale Shopping Centre to take part in the Andy Warhol themed session that allowed Oscar and Frankie to become Mini pop artists for the afternoon.
We are familiar with Whitgift Weeenies Kids Club sessions that are put on throughout the year and are completely free to take part in.
The sessions can be anything from animal handling to art sessions and are suitable for children aged 3-10.
This session saw the children trying their hand at printing by carving out a picture into a foam board, covering it with as much and as many different colours as they like and then creating their own Pop Art style masterpiece.
The friendly staff were at hand to help out where needed yet allowing the children free reign to really bring out their creative side.
Cleaned up and art in hand we finished off our jam packed day at RISEgallery they at the moment is homing some pieces of original artwork by Andy Warhol himself.
It certainly wasn’t a stuffy gallery that didn’t want enquisitive children around, we were infact all warmly welcomed, shown around the gallery and even had a chat about the art work that the boys had created.
The exhibition is on until the end of the month and there is still time to book in for this Sunday’s Wennies Kids Club session, so get yourself booked in as it’s something not to be missed!
*collaborated post