Noodle, Doodle, and Shrink: A Peek inside the Summer Art Shenanigans Event Boxes

SPOILER ALERT! If you want to keep the contents of your “Summer Art Shenanigans” Event Box a surprise, stop reading now. If you want to learn more about the contents of this arts access program “in a box,” keep reading.

And, if you didn’t get the memo about the two new changes to our popular arts access program “Second Saturdays,” click the button below to read about it!

About the Seasonal Saturday Program

Lastly — before we open the box — in case you’re wondering about the term “arts access,” it just means making the arts more available to everyone! The Minnesota State Arts Board, a leader in arts access funding, gives money (through competitive grants) to arts organizations who seek to plan and provide strategic, long-term engagement between arts organizations and traditionally underserved communities. Through their support and others, we are able to offer Seasonal Saturdays. Here IS A SERIOUS THANK YOU to all of our sponsors listed below. You know it’s serious because I used all caps.

Okay- what’s in the box?!?

Let’s take a peek inside our Seasonal Saturdays Summer Shenanigans Event Box!

Noodle:

MMAM is first and foremost an educational institution, and we use our collections of artworks to inspire, connect with each other, learn about different cultures, people, times, artistic styles, discover new ideas, perspectives, and change our moods. The magic of looking at a painting on a wall isn’t just about that painting, it is about what happens in your brain and body when you look at it. Aka, the “noodling.” Add some information about the artwork on top of that, and you have all the makings for a mind-blowing experience!

This welcome sheet explains all of the components in your Event Box.

So, how do you put that in a box? Well, it’s a challenge. Our solution was to give you a couple of “mini-posters” of artworks in the MMAM collection. It’s not even a little bit the same as standing in front of the authentic artwork, and that is why you get to come see it in person for only $1. Bonus … to add more shenanigans into the mix, on the back of the three mini-posters we included some word games in the form of a crossword puzzle, word search, and MMAMadLib. See what we did there? The mad-lib and crossword puzzle were created by local language artist extraordinaire Laura Armstrong.

We’ve included a paper tour of one of our favorite paintings.

The painting that inspired our theme “Summer Art Shenanigans” is a small painting by A. Wadsworth Thompson called A Midsummer’s Day on Long Island (1876.) In this painting you see a crowd of people enjoying their leisure time on the beach. And there definitely appears to be some shenanigans going on.

We included a paper tour that gives you some basic, and not-so-basic information about this painting, and includes prompts for conversation. After all, we are social animals wired for making connections. So, give it a try. If it’s weird at first, embrace it! Weird = expanding your comfort zone = growth.

Each box contains three mini-posters of MMAM paintings with fun word games on the back!

Doodle:

The group activity is a series of drawing games complete with all of the supplies you’ll need.

If you’re going to host an event, you need an activity for a crowd! For our “Summer Art Shenanigans” Event Box, we thought a series of drawing games would be just the thing to encourage some laughing, doodling, and guessing. We adapted popular drawing game favorites and included all of the supplies to get started as soon as you open the box.

Pencils. The pencils you see in your Event Box nearly killed us all. We ordered 3,000 sharpened pencils, and we received 3000 unsharpened pencils. Four staff members spent a combined 15 hours with our hands vibrating, our electric pencil sharpeners overheating, and our patience wearing thin making sure every pencil had a perfect point. Unexpected challenges always pop up, and our amazing MMAM Seasonal Saturday team handled this one with ease. Also, we have all vowed to use only pens for the next five years.

We sharpened 2000 pencils day, night, at our homes, and at work.

Shrink:

When we thought about what kind of summer art making activity we could include in this Event Box, all of us loved the idea of Shrinky Dinks! The simple act of shrinking a drawing is delightful every time. When my own family was testing this activity, I had to hide the shrink film to contain the high volume production coming out of our toaster oven.

Music and More:

We wanted to set the mood for the Event Box activities, so we asked local artist Andy Bauer to curate a special music playlist for folks to turn on while they noodled, doodled, and shrank their artworks.

We also thought everyone would need a little sustenance to keep up their strength, so we decided to include assorted flavors of fruit leather, because summer seems kind of fruity and assorted. Also, it doesn’t melt, isn’t too terribly sugary, and packs nice and flat.

A small snack to enjoy is included for each person registered for the Event Box.

While not included in your Event Box, we combed the interwebs for the most fun, useful, and/or aesthetically pleasing prizes (that cost $1 or less) to put into our treasure chest. What must you do to earn the honor of choosing one of these carefully selected treasures? Come visit us, pick up a Bingo Overboard game board at the front desk, and search the paintings high and low to get a “bingo” and a chance at the treasure chest.

Don’t forget to play Bingo when you visit! Prizes are available for all ages.

That’s the scoop! If you want a box now more than ever, register for a box below. While these Event Boxes are for everyone, we kindly ask our super-fans to give others a chance to register for this Box first so they can discover what you already love about us. Thank you.

P.S. We want to keep offering arts access programs!

We think they’re really important. If you do too, you can help us. You can complete the short survey we will send you after you pick up your Event Box, you can volunteer to help us at our in-person Seasonal Saturday programs returning in 2022, or you can donate a couple dollars, or a couple million dollars (we’re not picky) to support our work.

We hope you enjoy each and every component of your Event Box!

Seasonal Saturday Support Comes from:

This activity is made possible by the voters of Minnesota through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, thanks to a legislative appropriation from the arts and cultural heritage fund.