M. Pia De Girolamo

This weekend I exhibited work in the Philadelphia Open Studio Tours event and a friend, her husband and teenaged children were among my visitors. Whether or not the kids came willingly I don’t know but I think it was great that their parents brought them and exposed them to where art is made and shown.  I thought back to my own early exposures to original art.

The absolute very first memory dates back to first grade at PS 101 in Forest Hills, NY. Our first grade was broken up into three classes. Each class specialized in a different area and sometimes their activities crossed over. My class wrote, illustrated and put together a book of short essays about ourselves. The second class learned to play the recorder. The third class learned about art. Their teacher, a Mrs. Wexler, was passionate about modern art. I remember our class filing into hers to hear her speak about the subject and show us paintings by the modernists.  Paul Klee and Picasso stand out as two of the artists whose work she showed us. I remember this as being a great treat.

Mrs. Wexler took all of us on a field trip to the Museum of Modern Art in Manhattan. Though I don’t remember specific paintings I do remember thinking it was a very interesting place and that I very much enjoyed being there. I also have a picture in my mind of the MOMA Sculpture Garden, stark and beautiful in the late fall.

The second art-related trip that made a deep impression was when I was taken to the Metropolitan Museum by my parents to see an exhibit of Florentine frescos that had been damaged after the big flood of 1966.  The frescos had been carefully detached from their walls, restored and sent on tour before their replacement. The show was called “The Great Age of Fresco: From Giotto to Pontormo” and my parents bought the exhibition catalogue. My parents took us to the show because they wanted us to see the great art but also because it highlighted our Italian culture.

It is so important that parents gift their children with exposure to the visual arts for many reasons-as a stimulus to their own creativity and also as a way of learning about their own and other cultures. It also teaches them to think critically about their society as they look at the art that comes from it, responds to it and in turn helps create it.  It will help produce the next generation of artists and art-lovers.  What do you think...I'd love to hear your opinion!

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