Channel your inner Michelangelo.

Art and Innovation Lab

Our Art and Innovation Lab is stocked with everything from clay to paints to pastels to help your child explore the world of art. When children delve into art, they are not just painting a picture or creating a sculpture; they are developing skills that will help them in other areas of their lives, including spatial reasoning, perspective and dimension.

FOCUS: WINTER WONDERLAND: November 30th – January 5th

New Year @ Noon on December 31st: We’re channeling our superhero powers and performing random acts of kindness:

• Claim a Kindness: Don a mask & cape, then design your superhero badge button of Kindness
• Commit a Kindness:  Super Acts of Kindness Mural – Draw out cards on a mural giving someone a kind compliment

Art Bar: Sachets/Simmer Pot Gifts

• A sensory delight that creates fragrant gifts to children can share

Cookies

• Stars & bells & fancy shapes of model magic dough will be rolled out, cut and decorated just in time for the holidays.

Gingerbread People

• Design your own gingerbread man or person using a variety of embellishments

Meet the Artist Series featuring Kendrick Moore: Discover Your Voice activity will be on display until January 5th.

FOCUS: CHIAROSCURO: DARKNESS & LIGHT: December 31st – February 2nd

Art Bar: Winter Landscape Shadowbox

• Children will be guided as they measure, cut and assemble a multi-layered, 3D box of monotone paper revealing varying depths of light and shadow

Night Light Lanterns

• Design and apply a cover page, then construct a small lamp to light your way during long winter nights.

Cyanotype Sun Print Photographs

Meet the Artist Series: Kaylyn Webster on display until March 8th

Chiaroscuro Ball Drawings

• A simple gradation scale will help children understand the concept of CHIAROSCURO, which means the use of light and shadow in a work of art. This technical skill is used to better define any three dimensional object. Once children complete their scale, they draw a simple ball and work to shade it. Advanced young artists are welcome to illustrate a still life of balls using this special technique made famous by masters such as Leonardo da Vinci or Rembrandt.

FOCUS: I AM THE DREAM: BLACK HISTORY MONTH: February 4th – March 2nd

CMOM puts the dream of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. into action each day by treating all children equally and encouraging them to play and learn together. Every child who walks through our doors is the very definition of King’s dream no matter their race, color or creed. Black History Month is a chance for us to celebrate America’s differences in culture and contributions.

Art Bar: The Royalty in Me

• To raise children’s awareness of their own inner nobility, we take inspiration from artists Harmonia Rosales, Kevin Williams (whose parents were born in Memphis) and Jean-Michel Basquiat. Children will view themselves in self-portrait mirrors and draw what they see followed by an adornment of a small, but mighty crown of gold leafing.

Affirmation Emblem

• We’re celebrating what makes you YOU by naming some of the good things you offer to the world just by being you, designing an emblem that you add to the collaborative affirmation mirror and writing letters to Dr. King.

 Collaborative Peace & Freedom Quilt

• With special focus on famous African American Quilters: Bisa Butler, Harriet Powers and Faith Ringgold, children will create a square to add to a community quilt of kindness & affirmation of themselves and other that promotes peace and freedom for all.

Meet the Artist Series featuring Kaylyn Elise Webster

• What I Wish People Would Talk About More is a multimedia masterpieces combine photography, drawing, and self-exploration so that children develop their own narrative artwork about things important to them.

STEAM driven artivities resulting in usable design

Portrait Drawing: February 4th – 9th

• Hosted by Andre Miller, a local master of illustration

African Inspired Valentine’s: February 11th – 16th

• Create culturally relevant gifts for loved ones using a variety of symbolic treasures from Africa, like kente cloth and cowrie shells

Stained Glass Medallions: February 18th – 23rd

• Drop-in sessions hosted by Lonnie Robinson, designer of the stained-glass windows at Claiborne Temple & Mississippi Boulevard Christian Church

Cyanotype Photographs: February 25th – March 2nd

• With reference to the renowned photographer & poet named Gordon Parks, young artists will develop their own sun prints with poetic meter as an unexpected layer.

Pop Up Activity: March 2nd

Reading and/or posting of children’s letters to Dr. King