Budding artists

I'm in New York City for Thanksgiving so don't have any Grove news for today, but I found this interesting. I had the following story posted in the Huffington Post.

I went to MOMA (Museum of Modern Art) again, it seems like I visit every time I’m in New York. I stopped by in July and in October and again now, in November. It’s like a home away from home for me. Maybe because so many of my favorite paintings are there, but maybe my favorite paintings are there because I’m there so often and I recognize them and they are familiar and that’s what makes it home for me. I guess it’s my favorite that I like to visit, Van Gogh’s Starry Night. Maybe that’s why I go.

Anyway, the other day it was pretty cool because there were a handful of young school kids there with their teacher and they were drawing the paintings. The kids may have been about 8 or 9 years old. And it caught my attention because I sort of did the same thing in college, but I had to recreate an image from a photo, not the actual painting like these school kids. New York school kids have this great advantage of growing up surrounded by art and culture.

Here, the teacher, confers with two young students.

I was going to ask the teacher about it, but I didn’t want to dilute their adventure by getting myself involved. I watched them go from room to room, some held back, as I guess they aren’t born artists, but some got so into it. It was such a pleasure to see.

Well, lo and behold, the next day, I received an email from the teacher, he wanted to thank me for the story. I had wondered how he found it since his name wasn't published in the story and he told me that someone at MOMA saw the story and sent it to him.

His name is Sebastian Alappat and he told me this is a special program called SPARK. "My goal as the founder of SPARK is to cultivate and foster that creative fire in kids, if they are artists or not. By introducing the elements to them, you never know what they might be inspired to do. The Museum of Art immersion was two days, two museums and the results were amazing," he said.

You can learn more about SPARK at www.thespark.nyc .