Museum Studio Spaces IV

The Kohler Arts Center’s studio space The ARTery is a “free drop in art making studio with exhibition-inspired projects”. It is open whenever the museum is open for self-guided explorations and also offers facilitated experiences two afternoon/evenings a week and on weekend days. It is a beautiful light filled space. One interesting note – the entire floor is covered with cardboard.

One table was set up for map making as part of the Map Sheboygan project.

The project involves collecting hand drawn maps of Sheboygan to “test the hypothesis that official representations of place do not always reflect the way we experience those places and to understand the scope of our unique perceptions of Sheboygan and which places we individually consider valuable enough to include on a map.”

Over 200 maps have been collected and include maps by both locals and visitors and by children and adults.

Unlike other museum art studios I have visited The ARTery seems to be for all ages – not just that adults who come in with children can make art too but that all museum visitors are welcome. In conjunction with the exhibit “Beauty Surplus: Serra Victoria Bothwell Fells” the studio is collecting a series of collaborative journals.

The book is filled with written reflections and sketches from people of all ages. I wrote about the sun shining through the leaves that we could see through the window during our excellent lunch at the museum!

The month’s facilitated workshops are also inspired by the exhibition. The ARTery Beauty Store asks guests to imagine products that can “shift the definition of beauty”. Products developed include “machines that change negative thoughts” and “glasses that help you see the world with new perspectives.”

I was looking forward to the “Dr. Charles Smith: Aurora” exhibit of 218 sculptures from Dr. Smith’s African-American Heritage Museum and Black Veteran’s Archive environment in Aurora and was interested to see what studio project it would inspire. It was to create a “secondary source shape poem” in response to the exhibit.

The studio tables also included several project kits.

This weaving area may be in response to the exhibitions centering around weaver Lenore Tawney.

And there’s a small book area.

The gift store was being remodeled and a corner of the studio was being used as a small gift store area so I am looking forward to seeing what will be there the next time we visit.