PREVIEW // ARTLab: Scribble Machine Wrapping Paper for the Winter Art Market!

Enjoy the Winter Art Market and make your own Scribble Machine Wrapping Paper to wrap up those one-of-a-kind gifts! Here are some pictures of Scribble Machines in action from last weekend's Member Appreciation event.

 
Happy Holidays from the Mattress Factory! We hope to see you Saturday!

RECAP // Mini-Factory: PLACE!

In a recent Mini-Factory program we discussed the idea of PLACE … what is a place? … who fills this place? … what objects are in this place?  Sometimes looking at objects can give us clues about a place, telling us more about who lives there and what the place is used for. We can also take a walk in our neighborhood and look up, look down, look all around … a neighborhood is a PLACE too.  And that is exactly what we did in Mini-Factory as we walked to 516 Sampsonia Way to look at Chiharu Shiota's installation Trace of Memory. Shiota is an artist who entered an empty building and allowed her imagination to lead, weaving together the memories of lives and events which may have once existed in this PLACE.  Objects such as suitcases, books, chairs and a bed give us clues and guide our imaginations to create a story for this PLACE, the woven yarn visually connects these rooms and objects.  And that is what is so very unique about the Mattress Factory, it is a museum where art is created for a specific PLACE, perhaps a room, an elevator, building, or a wall.

  

After visiting Trace of Memory, Mini-Factory wrapped up with a good book and a PLACE making activity.  Every young artist was given a different color ball of yarn and allowed to weave, twist and thread it through our mobile pop-up space in the lobby.  We created a PLACE at the Mattress Factory!  The young artists chose objects to add to their space, connected by the yarn, creating their own story of a PLACE.  

Mini-Factory is a FREE 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. Check out upcoming Mini-Factory dates and themes here. E-mail education@mattress.org for more information or to register for an upcoming program.

PREVIEW // ARTLab: Experimentations with Kathleen Montgomery!

This Fall, the Mattress Factory is offering ARTLab programs with each of the artists exhibiting in the museum's Artists in Residence exhibition. ARTLabs are programs for all ages + FREE with museum admission. Come early and you can catch the FREE drop-in tour at noon, led by one of our museum educators.

This weekend, we’ll be joined by artist in residence Kathleen Montgomery for ARTLab. Kathleen allows her own intuition to lead while working with raw materials. In her installation Body Memory Architecture, you’ll find natural abstract shapes made of earth, plaster, wood, wax, as well as prints and drawings, as she explores the dialogue between each form and the space around it.

On the second floor of the museum's 1414 Monterey Street galleries, you’ll find Kathleen’s drawings that were created while listening to theremin music. A theremin is a type of electronic instrument that creates sound depending on how close you are to the antennae on the instrument. While listening to this music she responded to the vibrating quality of the sound with her body and arm movements, creating the drawings you see here.

In ARTLab, we’ll have a real theremin set up for visitors to play with, and visitors can use paint brushes and wear blindfolds and create drawings in response to the sounds of the theremin. Through this process, visitors will be able to get in touch with their body and senses and create something spontaneous and unique.

See you there!

RECAP // After School @ The Factory: Fall 2014!

The After School program at the Mattress Factory has been awesome this season!

Pittsburgh-based artist Celeste Neuhaus designs projects and activities for the stellar kids enrolled in the fall session, entitled SPACE EXPLORATION. All of the activities center around the museum’s current exhibitions and permanent installations. Each week there is a new exhibit and idea to explore, always focusing on mind how we experience the space around us.

Each week when the After School students visit the museum they are considering what installation art is and how different artists use space.

Each day in After School follows a pattern. The students arrive and sit down for snacks and homework time together before visiting a new exhibit, discussing the work, and then making works of our own inspired by the installation. The students have been exploring the museum, thinking critically about the work, and translating ideas into their own installation-inspired art each week--it has been a blast!

Students have had a great time visiting a different exhibit each week. So far they have made up stories about who might live in RyderHenry’s fantastical city, created their own Yayoi Kusama inspired polka dot installations, and even had a sit-down discussion with the artist Danny Bracken after experiencing the double rainbow in his installation What Does It Mean?

As this session is drawing to an end, the kids are getting more and more excited about the Celebration held the last day of the fall session, the students invite their friends and family into the museum to see all the amazing art they have been working on and the installations they have been seeing and interacting with each week.

It is sad to see the term ending but we know we will have an amazing adventure with After School in the Winter and Spring of next year! 

RECAP // ARTLab: Projector Animations + Storytelling with Karen Forney

This Fall, the Mattress Factory is offering ARTLab programs with each of the artists exhibiting in the museum's Artists in Residence exhibition. ARTLabs are programs for all ages + FREE with museum admission. Read on to learn more about the first ARTLab in the series, and what to expect from the next.

Previous ARTLab: WORD BALLOONS! with John Peña
John Peña’s Word Balloons is a striking new piece at the Mattress Factory. It is a physical manifestation of the artist’s vulnerability during his creative process. This physical translation of emotions in the form of cartoon word bubbles confronts the viewer in enormity of size and simplistic design.  The piece consists of two “balloons” crafted from extruded foam, plaster, wood, and screws, each with a statement painted on the surface. The first confronts the viewer as he/she exits the elevator.  At three feet, it the original prototype for the 12 by 6 by 9 foot balloon that fills the adjacent gallery.  The balloons are supported by wood beams, highlighting the weight of the words.  Peña is expressing his emotional challenges while working as an artist and also stressing the impact of the words we all speak and their effect on the world.

Visitors participating in ARTLab were given two-dimensional paper word balloons to write on and post throughout the galleries.  This externalization of a visitor’s internal experience of viewing art emulates Peña’s Word Balloons, temporarily leaving a physical trace of personal reflection on the museum. 

 


Next ARTLab: Projector Animations + Storytelling with Karen Forney
Saturday, November 15, 2014
1 - 4pm
FREE with museum admission

Karen Forney, Mattress Factory museum educator and local comedic improviser, will demonstrate how to use an overhead projector, cut paper, transparencies, sharpies, and found objects to create low-tech animations and shadow puppetry. You'll also get a chance to improvise a crazy story right on the spot with your creations, with some enthusiastic coaching from Karen! Bring your devices and film your creations and in no time you'll be an instant animator and storyteller. Tweet or Facebook your creations so the Mattress Factory and the world can laugh along with you at your spontaneous art!