ICEBOX Gallery & Framing

For exposing your kids to painting and sculpture as preschoolers, try taking them to commercial art galleries, which are ordinarily less crowded and less imposing than museum galleries. Theoretically, kids’ minds should be open to anything you introduce them to; you’d expect a preschooler, with no background in art criticism, to be uncritical and generally turned on by all new things. But in practice, a child of four or older will say, "Yucky," or "Ug-ly," or "I hate it," to paintings and sculptures, just as he does to the new foods he tasted. We continue to make these same judgments throughout our lives, sometimes because they are in fact Yucky.

Some types of art are more immediately appealing to preschoolers than others. Kids particularly like kinetic (moving) sculptures and light sculptures, and they are fascinated by holography (laser-projected three-dimensional pictures).

Bring along an opera glass or a magnifying glass to help stimulate your child’s interest in looking carefully at the things being exhibited.

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