Some of us went to the Art Museum today to see masterpieces. Ones by Picasso? Monet, you ask? No – Fresh Artists did them. And they’re getting a lot of attention!

Stephanie and her son Dalton, who just celebrated his first birthday, were visiting from Brooklyn. They were standing in front of a Murakami. “Awesome,” said Stephanie. "I love his work. But I almost like the kids’ work better than the original! she admitted”

We asked Linda, visiting from St. Paul, what she thought of the exhibit. “I love it. Because it’s kids.” Turns out she’s a counselor in Minnesota K-12 pubic schools.

And then there was Jack’s comment. “What I really like,” he said, “is that you imagine the art really engaged the kids. And who know where that will go.”

Last fall the Museum invited Fresh Artists to partner in creating one of our award-winning Memory Games as a companion to the Museum’s popular children’s book A is for Art Museum. As part of our Mini-Masterpieces Program, an all-call for entries was sent to art teachers in public schools throughout the Delaware Valley and was posted on the Fresh Artists website.

Fresh Artists and the Museum provided teachers with reproductions of the images and curatorial notes, with detailed information on the purpose of the project and suggestions on size and media.

The Challenge
The children were invited to interpret the Museum masterpieces in the book, not to copy them. They had free rein and understood that the ultimate outcome was to create a fun, educational matching game with 2 x 2” tiles. Art teachers pointed out that their artwork would be made very small and needed to be “memorable”…so the game was “playable”.

320 entries were received. We thank and congratulate the following Art teachers whose students were chosen for the game:

Evelyn Bock, Fresh Artists Sprout Studio at Jenks Academy of Arts & Sciences

Rachel Brewster, Mastery Charter School, Lenfest Campus

Kimberly Colasante, Wilson Middle School

Leslie Grace, Nebinger Elementary School

Robyn Miller, Fresh Artists Sprout Studio at Jenks Academy of Arts & Sciences

Justin Rothrauff, Mastery Charter School, Shoemaker Campus

Deva Watson, Wissahickon Charter School

The Memory Game

Each of these 27 pieces of artwork has been donated to Fresh Artists to be part of our 6th edition of Memory Games, “A is for Art Museum”.  A digital image of each piece has been licensed to Fresh Artists by the child and parent to become part of our permanent Collection. The original artwork has been scanned at high resolution and after this exhibition, will be returned to the young artists to keep forever. They retain the copyright.

The “A is for Art Museum” Memory Game will be published before the holidays and will be available in the Museum Shop, as well as in other museum and specialty shops throughout the country and on the Fresh Artists website. The five current Fresh Artists Memory Games are available on our website, www.freshartists.org

Be sure to visit the Art Museum to see the show, which will be up through the rest of the summer. Oh, and while you’re there, you might also want to see the Impressionists’ exhibit.