Lessons in Photography

One of my projects for the summer has been to resurrect the Museum's Education Department camera to capture images of the various programming that's almost always going on at the Museum. It's one of those "easier said than done" things, because the camera itself is pretty ancient--it uses AA batteries and eats them up like crazy. It's always an adventure when the batteries die in the middle of some event and I've gotten, lets say, 10 pictures of the refreshment table (which I just may have set out myself--my photography tends toward the self-serving) and zero of the keynote speaker.

But the times of the week that I am so glad for the camera is when I take pictures of our Summer Sketch Club on Tuesday mornings and Creating Together class for parents and children on Wednesday mornings. Last week our Summer Sketch Club, which is for ages seven and up, met to do pencil drawings outside on the hillside overlooking Norman Rockwell's studio (which has, by the way, been on the Museum's property since 1986 when we loaded it onto a truck and drove it here from the middle of Stockbridge a couple of miles away).



After explaining the different levels of hardness for the pencil sets and giving examples of line drawing, the teacher let the kids in the class roam the hillside to find a subject that jumped out at them. Brother and sister Sam and Sarah parked themselves under a huge tree and drew an elaborate imagined fairy battle taking place over its craggy roots. Meanwhile three girls arranged their stools around Rockwell's studio, drawing the old carriage barn where he created masterpieces like The Golden Rule. I snapped some pictures--maybe not the best or most focused, I am still learning--of these kids discovering the magic of storytelling through art, Rockwell's very own specialty.