RECAP // Mini-Factory: SEASONS!

What a beautiful time of year! Tje sunshine, breeze and slight chill in the air made for a perfect chance to talk about SEASONS at Mini-Factory, the Mattress Factory's program for adventurous young art explorers. Using two great installations as our focal point, we discussed the characteristics of each season such as hot versus cold, green versus brown, or growing versus hibernating.

Garden Installation by Winifred Lutz provided the perfect example for our group to discover and talk about these SEASONal traits. Leaves are just beginning to turn colors of yellow, red and brown, yet the grass is still tall and green. The breeze was chilly yet the sun was bright and sky blue - a perfect Fall day to explore these color and temperature changes through landscape art.

Rolf Julius provides a more abstract example of SEASONS with Ash located at the Mattress Factory's 1414 Monterey satellite building. Here, our group of 3 to 5 year-olds listened to a synthesis of crickets and radiator whistles pouring out of two terra cotta flower pots covered in ash. The sounds of crickets are reminiscent of warm summer nights, contrasted by the whistle of a radiator which makes us think of chilly winter days. If you could choose a sound to put in the flower pot, what would it be? A kiss! ...well that reminds us of Valentine's day when it is cold outside.

Returning to the Garden, we set out on our activity - a chameleon for all SEASONS. Each young artist was given a blank picture of a chameleon along with a basket of crayons and colored pencils. Choose where the chameleon would live in the garden, then reflect this in his colors. Would he live in a tree? ... in the grass and dirt? ... on the pile of yellow and red leaves? There were green and brown chameleons, yellow and purple chameleons ... each one was different and unique depending on the area of the garden, yet all reflected the colors of the SEASON.

Mini-Factory is an interactive learning program for children ages 3 - 5 years old and their parents or caregivers. Using contemporary installation art, parents and children will explore new ideas and concepts from the everyday world. Join us at 10am on October 24th for LIGHT.

RECAP // Mini-Factory: PATTERNS!

PATTERNS surround us in our world. They can be created using colors, shapes, and different sizes ... on our clothes, dinner plates and sidewalks, PATTERNS allow us to find repetition at its best. Thick, white stripes on a street indicate it is safe to cross. Rows of alternating red rectangles reach up to the sky exemplifying the craftsmanship of a multi-storied building (like the Mattress Factory!). Some artists use PATTERNS to convey feelings, set a mood, or shock our senses. Mini-Factory visited shift lens by Anne Lindberg. Using tightly pulled thread secured to each side of the room, a colorful yet surreal crisscross PATTERN is created. Light filters from the windows behind allowing colors to bend and play with your visual senses. The consensus? ... Very cool!

Yayoi Kusama uses polka-dots throughout her installations so viewers may experience her point of view - literally - and the ensuing feelings. What do you feel when walking through Infinity Dots Mirrored Room and Repetitive Vision? Calm, jolted, dizzy? The abundance of polka-dots plays a large role with how we feel in these installations.

PATTERNS also occur naturally, such as the lines in a blade of grass, the veins of a leaf and the speckles in a piece of granite. Our young artists were given magnifying glasses and asked to walk through Winifred Lutz's Garden in search of patterns. Leaves, bricks, rocks and water were inspected for naturally occurring PATTERNS - success!

Of course given the chance, these energetic artists love to create something new. Using their imagination and inspiration learning and observing PATTERNS, our young crew created their own installations with various materials such as yarn, stickers, markers, pipe cleaners and tape. There were PATTERNS of all kinds; two-toned stripes, colorful polka-dots, sparkling spirals, and more.

Mini-Factory is an interactive learning program for children ages 3-5 years old and their parents or caregivers. Using contemporary installation art, parents and children will explore new ideas and concepts from the everyday world. Join us at 10am on August 22, 2015 to explore the theme of SCIENCE.