Man parts and the museum of fine art...

I took the boys to the art museum last week.  My usual strategy is to take a camera and let them take turns taking pictures.  That quickly fell apart when they noticed the nude sculptures.  They couldn't stop giggling over the bare butts - time to move on to Creation Station, where volunteers set up art supplies and instructions.  Well the day's project was sculpture.  You can imagine where this is going.  They weren't accurate enough on the rear ends for me to worry about it, but when the 6-8 year old crowd tries to sculpt man parts, the result is disturbing (think of those ancient sculptures with absurd anatomy).  Praise the Lord, they soon lost interest doing Play Doh porn and moved on to zombie sculpture, which you never see among the ancient greats but is much less disturbing to the artists' mothers.

The museum had fabulous children's programs.  After the adventures in sculpting, we moved on to storybook art.  We got mats, a picture book and a card with questions about the piece.  The boys laid down on their mats (David was almost too cool for it :( ) while I read them a story from the same country as the piece and asked them questions.  Then we searched the exhibit for the item we'd (theoretically) like to take home.  There was headhunter equipment and a large selection of weapons, so it was a tough decision for them.

Last was Art Detective.  We searched for the week's featured artwork and did some drawing activities.  Next an artist gave a very hands on explanation.  This week's piece was a sculpture of a Central American ball player.  The loser of the "game" was offered as a ritual sacrifice - hugely popular with my bloodthirsty crowd.  After the museum, I bought them cokes, chips and candy.  That's my highbrow way of encouraging the arts.

So, as it involves gore, bare butts and gas station food, the Museum of Fine Art is now a destination of choice for the brothers h.  They're very cultured children.