Youngsters got to explore their artistic side Saturday during Family Day at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art.
Each child who turned out for the event on the Evanston campus got a box of art supplies
and perhaps a little help from the grownups in realizing their artistic ambitions.
The could experiment with print-making and try their hand at sculpting with modeling clay.
Several dozen children from 5 to 12 years old turned out for the afternoon event, which
also featured a map to lead kids on a tour of the sculptures in the garden around the museum
including a 1981 work, “Interior Form” by British sculptor Henry Moore.
Kids explore their artistic side….where?
Youngsters got to explore their artistic side Saturday during Family Day at Northwestern University’s Block Museum of Art.
Yet another example of how Northwestern adds to the community.
This looks like a lot of fun – I wonder how many people came. Is this an annual event, or does it occur several times throughout the year? Did any of the Fair Share or GDR folks bring their kids?
Northwestern’s Block Museum has other programs available for families or school groups available for minimal fees.
http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/education/family-youth.html
http://www.blockmuseum.northwestern.edu/education/school-teacher.html
I hope that the kids in the Evanston schools take advantage of these opportunities. Really, they look like a lot of fun. – a lot more fun than a trip to the creepy Dawes House . I think that kids would enjoy repeat visits – especially if fingerpainting is involved , while once is certainly enough for the Dawes House.
If we want NU to contribute more to the community, I think that we should ask them to have more activities like this, instead of trying to get them to subsidize the Dawes House.
NWU programs are often far from free
I looked on their website, but couldn’t find the cost for this particular program, however, most of the fee-based programs offered by NWU’s various artistic venues are available free or at a much lower cost elsewhere in Evanston: for instance, Pick-Staiger offers kid’s concerts for $5 for adults or $3 for kids tickets (more than the Ravinia kid’s series, which is $3 per ticket regardless of age) where the Music Institute offers several free concerts per year. The Mitchell Museum is free (there’s a suggested donation,) at the Block you have to pay for a membership or an entrance fee. Daycamps and classes offered by NWU are on average $100 more than the going rate.
I do agree, I’d like to see NWU get more involved in offering educational programs and I appreciate the ones that are both accessible and inexpensive (I should mention here that their excellent Griffin’s Tale program for schools is both) but it should be noted that it appears many of these programs are a source of income, rather than a community contribution. Yes, they offer stuff – but the City and other local nonprofits are offering more. I don’t think this lets them off the hook for offering non-NWU businesses tax-free rental space.
Find out more about Brummel Park Neighbors and Michele Hays
Most programs at the Block Museum ARE free
I’d like to correct a few misstatements on the previous post. Admission to the exhibitions at Northwestern’s Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art is always free. Membership is not required to visit nor is there an entrance fee. Most programs, such as talks by artists, scholars, and curators and our exhibition and sculpture garden tours, are also free. The recent Family Day program was free, and other similar programs are offered for small fees (the upcoming Pinhole Camera family workshop on October 12 is just $5 per family).
The Block also offers free or very low cost ($10-$25 per group) interactive tours for school and summer camp groups. When Northwestern is in session Block Cinema has film screenings in a professional movie theater for just $6, with many free screenings in the mix. During the summer, the Cinema works with NU partners to put on the free Summer Outdoor Movies.
Burke Patten
Communications Manager, Mary and Leigh Block Museum of Art
bpatten@northwestern.edu
Thank you for the correction
I apologize, I was looking at this page of your website, which I found when searching for “Family Day.” It discusses membership fee reductions, which lead me to believe there are museum fees. However, as I said before, the offerings you list are duplicated around the city: free outdoor movies, free museum-based craft projects and museum tours: tours of the sculpture garden in Skokie – all of which are more easily accessible to our less fortunate citizens.
On the other hand, the Pick-Staiger kid’s series information I mentioned is available here and Wildkit Camp information is available here. Compare here with Evanston programs: much of NWU’s programming for local children is neither discounted nor accessible.
While, again, I appreciate these offerings, and agree that they enrich the quality of life in Evanston – they are not a replacement for fair and open town-gown relations, nor an adequate response to offering tax-free rental space to non-NWU for-profit businesses.
Find out more about Brummel Park Neighbors and Michele Hays
why would for profit business be provided tax-free space?
“they are not a replacement for fair and open town-gown relations, nor an adequate response to offering tax-free rental space to non-NWU for-profit businesses.”
someone please correct me if i am wrong. it is my impression that when NWU, or any not-for-profit, has office space or business space that they provide to a proprietary or for-profit enterprise, that space is supposed to be charged for the appropriate property tax. i know that the building is not on the tax rolls. however, i believe that it is only non-taxable to the extent that the actual use is also not-for-profit. i think the issue becomes one of the “landlord” actually collecting and reporting and submitting the tax.
or did i make this up?
The key word is “supposed to”
My understanding is that, as you essentially said, it is left up to the not-for-profit landlord to police the use of their property, and collect and pay property taxes on behalf of their tenants as is appropriate – and my second understanding is that NWU is not doing so for the properties it rents to for-profit businesses. I’d certainly prefer to be wrong about this – so if there is evidence to the contrary, please correct me.
Find out more about Brummel Park Neighbors and Michele Hays