Colorful, creative kids

Working from a palette of every color of the rainbow, more than 30 children created a cheerful gallery of paper murals Tuesday afternoon during the last session of Children’s Art Workshops at Gilroy Gardens Family Theme Park.
The small artists were having so much fun, in fact, they weren’t even lured away by the park’s Mushroom Swing or Banana Split.
“My daughter doesn’t want to stop painting to leave to go on the rides because she’s enjoying it so much,” Fred Chase of Livermore said about his 3-year-old daughter, Hanna Chase.
Hanna was one of dozens of participants who showed up for the park’s popular workshop that teamed up with local artists to give children educational lessons in art. The program – enjoyed by families who traveled from places like Santa Clara and Salinas to participate – gave preschool and elementary school aged children a chance to learn while having fun. The free workshops were held every Tuesday for ten weeks and are anticipated to be brought back next summer.
“Parents were thrilled when we announced plans for the Children’s Art Workshops,” said Park Director Barb Granter. “We will absolutely be bringing back the program next year.”
The Children’s Art Workshops fall under the umbrella of the Art in the Park program, a community initiative for Gilroy Gardens in 2013. The program will continue throughout the year and host various exhibits in the Art and the Park Gallery, which opened in April, according to Granter. The gallery is located in the Red Barn gift shop near Monarch Garden and rotates featured artists. The Red Barn currently features photos from the Morgan Hill Photography Club.
On Tuesday, little budding Picassos used their imaginations to free-style paint on a blank white sheet, while others helped fill in an unfinished mural in the event tent of the park that had been drawn by resident Gilroy Gardens artist Susan Memmen.
Memmen, who is well known in Santa Clara County’s business community as a window painter and wall muralist, has been involved as a volunteer with Gilroy Gardens for 13 years and employed there for the past three. She recently completed a meticulous paint restoration of the park’s carousel horses.
Memmen said she chose to get involved with launching the first year of the Children’s Art Workshops because she thinks it is vital for children to be exposed to art at a young age.
In a time where art and music programs are disappearing from the classroom, “I passionately feel it is part of (student’s) physical and mental development,” Memmen said, visibly distressed about significant state budget cuts to education in recent years.
Those who participated in the program agree the workshops were a huge success, especially thanks to volunteers like local artists Ann Howe and Julie Franco, photographer Donna Ferrante and “super docent” Jan Froom.
“Boy, I sure hope that this becomes an annual thing,” Howe said, smiling from ear to ear.
Like many of the workshop’s participants, Howe – a longtime art teacher and lead artist for the program – sported splotches of blue, red, green, purple and pink paint all over her hands.
She pointed out that mural painting was just one of many art activities children were able to participate in throughout the summer.
“We did a Georgia O’Keefe lesson where kids would focus on really zoomed-in views of flowers,” Howe recalled. “We also did another workshop called ‘Nature Sun Prints’ where kids would use light-sensitive paper called cyanotype and use the sun to outline their art.”
Weekly workshops typically lasted 45 minutes and were limited to approximately 10 students. Park-goers had the option of signing their children up for attendance each morning near the property’s Welcome Center.
“We kept the time limit pretty short because this is our first year and we wanted to see the response,” Howe explained. “Kids from the kindergarten age and up have proven to be really receptive.”
Howe, who has worked with children and art in various capacities for 30 years, was most recently involved with Arts Alive at Rucker Elementary School and the popular Kids Discover Art program through the City of Gilroy.
Echoing Memmen’s concerns that elementary students get limited creative time in school, Howe said she enjoys helping develop new projects for “outside of the classroom.”
Artist Julie Franco, who has also taught at Kids Discover Art and has a background in book illustration and pet portraits, believes art is “a way to balance children.”
“It has been a present to me to have been asked to come in and help with the workshops,” she beamed.
As a part of its Art in the Park initiative, Gilroy Gardens also hosts “Artist Access Days,” where local artists and photographers are offered free entrance and parking access to the gardens to paint, draw or photograph the unique beauty and stunning vistas of the theme park. All art created in the park or art related to the park will be considered for exhibition in the new Art in the Park Gallery.
For more information, contact Gilroy Gardens Art in the Park at (408) 840-7130 or Ar**********@Gi***********.org.