Emily Wesenick, youth and family program manager
From fresh landscaping to new sculptures in the garden to changing exhibitions, change is a constant at the Woodson Art Museum. While reimagining spaces is exciting, especially as we prepare for the 50th edition of Birds in Art, one space in the Museum has been changing quietly for years.
Each exhibition period, fellow educator Rachel Hausmann-Schall and I determine how Art Park can help visitors engage in hands-on experiences themed around the current exhibitions. This space has seen it all. From hats hanging high above visitors’ heads to storybook characters flying across the walls, heck even a larger-than-life cardboard moose and a giant cake have graced the lower-level’s interactive space.
This year, Art Park is taking a walk down memory lane. Deep in the Museum educational storage is a space lovingly referred to as the “Way Back.” This space tends to hide items until it deems them particularly valuable. You may be thinking, “Emily, the Museum can’t squirrel things away and then produce them at the most opportune time.” And to that I say, you haven’t ventured into the “Way Back” only to discover an entire bin of previously nonexistent owl projects that have appeared just before an owl themed toddler program, have you?!
A popular saying in the education department is that the “Way Back” both giveth and taketh away. As we approach the fall season, I can confidently say that the “Way Back” hath giveth many memories of Art Park from exhibitions past. Unearthed in this memory walk were a giant chicken, perfect for folded feathers with wishes for the next fifty years, a Charley Harper inspired bookshelf (be still, my beating heart), and a host of half complete puzzles. We promise the only puzzles out will be those with all their pieces.
Our final stroke of genius? A scrapbook inspired by the one created in 2000 with Birds in Art artists—in true Art Park fashion, it must be larger than life. Maybe fifty years from now another educator will be digging through the “Way Back” thinking “why on earth did they make this thing so large?!”
