Kids Take Flight during AHA Night – Thursday, July 8, 2010
http://www.newbedford360.com/articles/articles/1767/1/Kids-Take-Flight-during-AHA-Night--Thursday-July-8-2010/Page1.html
New Bedford Art Museum
Our Mission:The New Bedford Art Museum engages the public in experiencing, understanding and appreciating art.
The South Coast is rich in culture, history and diversity. And rich in art!
Since 1996, the New Bedford Art Museum has been a fixture in downtown New Bedford, offering engaging exhibitions of artwork from around the corner and across the ocean.
Linger, learn and appreciate art and artistic expression as you stroll through the Museum's main Skylight Gallery. Discover new delights as you explore the Museum's home, a former bank that includes two vintage vaults, one with a distinctive circular safe door.
The Museum strives to offer dynamic and interactive educational opportunities. Museum education programs reach out to the community through its distinctive ArtMobile summer program as well as creative arts education and lectures for adults and children.
Museum exhibits change three times each year and vary in subject matter and artistic medium. Contemporary and historic art, as well as local, national and international artists, have been displayed.
Come get a taste of New Bedford's artistic culture.
New Bedford Art Museum
608 Pleasant Street
New Bedford, MA 02740
Tel: 508-961-3072
http://www.newbedfordartmuseum.org
By New Bedford Art Museum
Published on 07/6/2010
Kids take the stage during AHA! Night, July 8th from 6:00 – 8:00 at the New Bedford Art Museum. Surrounded by John James Audubon‘s life size birds from the Condor to the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Roseate Spoonbill, master educators and artists Jason Eckhardt, Ron Johansen and Dr. Alan Powers will teach kids and interested adults to take flight through the arts of sketching, carving and bird song.
Kids Take Flight at the New Bedford Art Museum
The New Bedford Art Museum is located at 608 Pleasant Street, New Bedford, MA Summer Hours Tuesday – Sunday 10:00 A.M. – 5:00 P.M. For Additional Information, Please Contact Peggi Medeiros at the New Bedford Art Museum (508) 961-3072 or at pmedeiros@ComCast.net
Kids Take Flight at the New Bedford Art Museum
AHA Night, July 8, 2010
Experiment with
Drawing the Birds with Jason Eckhardt
Learn How the Birds are Carved with Ron Johansen
Sing to the Birds with Dr. Alan Powers
Kids take the stage during AHA! Night, July 8th from 6:00 – 8:00 at the New Bedford Art Museum. Surrounded by John James Audubon‘s life size birds from the Condor to the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Roseate Spoonbill, master educators and artists Jason Eckhardt, Ron Johansen and Dr. Alan Powers will teach kids and interested adults to take flight through the arts of sketching, carving and bird song.
At 6:00 P.M. Dr. Alan W. Powers begins the evening. He is Emeritus Professor of English at Bristol Community College and wears hats as a Renaissance scholar and a bird listener, lover and the author of Birdtalk: Conversations with Birds. Frog Books noted in 20202 on its publication
“ For the last 20 years, Alan Powers, who lives near Cape Cod, has experimented with birdcalls mimicking and answering the calls he hears around his country home, in cities, and abroad in France and Italy. In BirdTalk, he celebrates this connection with entertaining allusions to history, literature, travel, linguistics, and other fields. The result is a charming and erudite stroll through an area of interest sometimes lost in the urban din. Powers reveals “birdtalk” by mapping the history of ornithological studies, quoting such bird fanciers as Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson and discussing specific techniques. In one of the most amusing chapters, he describes his attempts to teach the birds new symphonic riffs on their own calls.”
BirdTalk has an introduction by the legendary Richard C. Wheeler and it is illustrated by artist Susan Mohl Powers. As Dr. Powers explains: “Birdtalk is about responding to birds, not merely imitating, but partly. I plan to give a kind of music lesson: rhythym, glissandos (birds & trombones share these!), rising thirds, maybe quarter-tones (birds use them all the time). I'll bring a couple instruments, though maybe not my trombone--I've played jazz trombone all my life. Wood Thrush use a pentatonic scale, like our blues. The Beatles' "Blackbird" is about one of Europe's best singers, a bit like our Oriole.”
If you’ve ever wondered about what birds song means and how to answer them, Dr. Powers will end the confusion. Be sure to visit him at his website www.habitableworlds.com
Following at 7:00 P.M. is Jason C. Eckhardt an extraordinary illustrator specializing in children’s books and masters of fiction such as the legendary H.P. Lovecraft. Mr. Eckhardt will be showing how to draw birds in a hands on session. At his website www.eck-art.net, Mr. Eckhardt introduces himself by writing:
“I was born on Christmas Day, 1958, and have been drawing every since. All the Eckhardt family created art, my mother who was a watercolorist, especially; and with me it was comic strips at first. Then at age twelve, I discovered a book that changed my life and have a direction to my artwork: d’Aulaire’s Norse Gods and Giant. Leafing through this gorgeously illustrated book again and again, I determined that I would one day be the one painting the pictures in book. Thirty some years later I am that guy, but with a lot of art in between.”
Mr. Eckhardt notes“ What I plan to do with the kids is show them how to draw a couple common birds-seagull, egret and owl-and in the process hopefully get them to open their eyes and see the difference between birds-what makes an owl an owl, etc.”
At 7:30 master bird carver Ron Johansen will teach the art of scale in bird carving. His beautifully carved and painted birds are major examples of the carver’s art.
Hank Seaman in his 2002 Standard-Times profile of Mr. Johansen begins:
“It's awfully tempting for a birdbrain like me to try to get cute in describing bird carver par excellence Ron Johansen.I could say, for example, that Ron's art is for the birds. I could tell you that he wings it ... that he flies by the seat of his pants ... that his craftsmanship is a mere flight of fancy. II could say, for example, that Ron's art is for the birds. I could tell you that he wings it ...that his craftsmanship is a mere flight of fancy. But, you’ll be relieved to know I'm going to spare you all the puerile inanities. Besides, all puns aside, nothing could be farther from the truth. This guy's good. Very, very good. “
On AHA! Night there is no charge for admission at the New Bedford Art Museum and the programs are free. The museum’s signature summer exhibitions Taking Flight: The Birds of John James Audubon from the Collection of the New Bedford Free Public Library, Birds of the Enlightenment – The Contemporaries of J.J. Audubon and the Vault Series: Portraits run through September 11. Join us on Thursday, July 8th as kids take flight. For additional information, please call the Museum at (508) 961-3072
Kids Take Flight at the New Bedford Art Museum
AHA Night, July 8, 2010
Experiment with
Drawing the Birds with Jason Eckhardt
Learn How the Birds are Carved with Ron Johansen
Sing to the Birds with Dr. Alan Powers
Kids take the stage during AHA! Night, July 8th from 6:00 – 8:00 at the New Bedford Art Museum. Surrounded by John James Audubon‘s life size birds from the Condor to the Ivory Billed Woodpecker and Roseate Spoonbill, master educators and artists Jason Eckhardt, Ron Johansen and Dr. Alan Powers will teach kids and interested adults to take flight through the arts of sketching, carving and bird song.
At 6:00 P.M. Dr. Alan W. Powers begins the evening. He is Emeritus Professor of English at Bristol Community College and wears hats as a Renaissance scholar and a bird listener, lover and the author of Birdtalk: Conversations with Birds. Frog Books noted in 20202 on its publication
“ For the last 20 years, Alan Powers, who lives near Cape Cod, has experimented with birdcalls mimicking and answering the calls he hears around his country home, in cities, and abroad in France and Italy. In BirdTalk, he celebrates this connection with entertaining allusions to history, literature, travel, linguistics, and other fields. The result is a charming and erudite stroll through an area of interest sometimes lost in the urban din. Powers reveals “birdtalk” by mapping the history of ornithological studies, quoting such bird fanciers as Shakespeare and Emily Dickinson and discussing specific techniques. In one of the most amusing chapters, he describes his attempts to teach the birds new symphonic riffs on their own calls.”
BirdTalk has an introduction by the legendary Richard C. Wheeler and it is illustrated by artist Susan Mohl Powers. As Dr. Powers explains: “Birdtalk is about responding to birds, not merely imitating, but partly. I plan to give a kind of music lesson: rhythym, glissandos (birds & trombones share these!), rising thirds, maybe quarter-tones (birds use them all the time). I'll bring a couple instruments, though maybe not my trombone--I've played jazz trombone all my life. Wood Thrush use a pentatonic scale, like our blues. The Beatles' "Blackbird" is about one of Europe's best singers, a bit like our Oriole.”
If you’ve ever wondered about what birds song means and how to answer them, Dr. Powers will end the confusion. Be sure to visit him at his website www.habitableworlds.com
Following at 7:00 P.M. is Jason C. Eckhardt an extraordinary illustrator specializing in children’s books and masters of fiction such as the legendary H.P. Lovecraft. Mr. Eckhardt will be showing how to draw birds in a hands on session. At his website www.eck-art.net, Mr. Eckhardt introduces himself by writing:
“I was born on Christmas Day, 1958, and have been drawing every since. All the Eckhardt family created art, my mother who was a watercolorist, especially; and with me it was comic strips at first. Then at age twelve, I discovered a book that changed my life and have a direction to my artwork: d’Aulaire’s Norse Gods and Giant. Leafing through this gorgeously illustrated book again and again, I determined that I would one day be the one painting the pictures in book. Thirty some years later I am that guy, but with a lot of art in between.”
Mr. Eckhardt notes“ What I plan to do with the kids is show them how to draw a couple common birds-seagull, egret and owl-and in the process hopefully get them to open their eyes and see the difference between birds-what makes an owl an owl, etc.”
At 7:30 master bird carver Ron Johansen will teach the art of scale in bird carving. His beautifully carved and painted birds are major examples of the carver’s art.
Hank Seaman in his 2002 Standard-Times profile of Mr. Johansen begins:
“It's awfully tempting for a birdbrain like me to try to get cute in describing bird carver par excellence Ron Johansen.I could say, for example, that Ron's art is for the birds. I could tell you that he wings it ... that he flies by the seat of his pants ... that his craftsmanship is a mere flight of fancy. II could say, for example, that Ron's art is for the birds. I could tell you that he wings it ...that his craftsmanship is a mere flight of fancy. But, you’ll be relieved to know I'm going to spare you all the puerile inanities. Besides, all puns aside, nothing could be farther from the truth. This guy's good. Very, very good. “
On AHA! Night there is no charge for admission at the New Bedford Art Museum and the programs are free. The museum’s signature summer exhibitions Taking Flight: The Birds of John James Audubon from the Collection of the New Bedford Free Public Library, Birds of the Enlightenment – The Contemporaries of J.J. Audubon and the Vault Series: Portraits run through September 11. Join us on Thursday, July 8th as kids take flight. For additional information, please call the Museum at (508) 961-3072