The Scribble Art Show
At the end of April, Scribble curated an exhibition showcasing artwork made by students from one of our longest running artist residencies: Muscota New School, a public school in Upper Manhattan where our teaching artists provide high quality visual arts programming for the entire community (2 classes of each grade level from grades K-5). We sold one piece of artwork from every student in the school (that’s almost 300 pieces of artwork!) and left families energetic and excited about a thriving arts program that gives students the true experience of being practicing artists.
Providing students with the time and space to share their work with their community is an important aspect of teaching them how art operates both socially and commercially outside the studio. Consider the following questions: What do you want to teach your students about the commercial art world? What value do you want them to place on artwork and art-making? How do our curatorial choices impact what we want them to learn about exhibitions? Here are some tips for exhibiting student artwork when considering your educational (and fundraising) goals:
Location, location, location! Choose a spot that’s close to your school (it’ll encourage more families to attend). Space capacity, wall space and the owners’ “tolerance” for a school event should also be considered. Lastly, try to find a space that elevates the artwork (lighting is important).
Prepare students for selling their work: Prior to the show, we spent weeks guiding students as they finalized their work. We asked them to consider the fact that they would not be with their piece to explain it to a viewer. The piece would need to speak for itself. This helped highlight their responsibility to create a finished work of art that would have a life of its own apart from them, possibly ending up in an art collection belonging to a peer, or mentor.
Prepare students [and parents] for attending the exhibit: Students will play different roles at the exhibit. Some will be viewers, some will be collectors and others will be docents. At this school, we were lucky to have had a parent who works as an educator at The Whitney Museum of American Art and she ran a workshop for our fourth and fifth grade students to train them as gallery docents during the show! Encourage families to NOT buy their child’s artwork. This is a great opportunity to see their child’s aesthetic taste: which piece do they want to add to their collection?
Engage parents! See above ;) Parents are key to making this all work. There are A LOT of tasks (framing, parent outreach, hanging the show, labeling the artwork, getting food/wine donations, working at the exhibit) that need to be completed and your parent community is the answer to getting it all done! And who knows? You may also have some gallerists or museum educators in your community who want to contribute!
Want to learn more about our residencies or student art shows? Email us or learn more here. And in the meantime, enjoy some more pics of the show below:
