Art in Bloom
Art in Bloom is an event held by the Carnegie Museum of Art each year, when local people and organizations create floral arrangements inspired by and based on artwork at the museum. This year, Children’s Museum created an arrangement for the event. Ours was to be a companion piece for “Drain” by Robert Gober, a hand-crafted pewter drain set into the back wall of a…
Design and prototype
Sometimes, we can find some really cool stuff in the Museum’s basement. Our basement serves as one of the exhibit workshops, so many of the materials were at one point used for prototyping or repairing exhibits. For example, this acrylic dome. It was originally used as a prototype for our newly renovated Waterplay exhibit. Now, it is being used to…
Meet a Maker!
For a limited time only, you can visit the MAKESHOP and work with Lea on Sunday – Thursday. Lea will be working with us until the end of August when she will continue her creative pursuits at the STUDIO for Creative Inquiry at Carnegie Mellon University. Name/ Nickname: Lea Favorite color: Teal How long have you been working at…
Meet a Maker!
If you’ve visited the MAKESHOP on a weekend, chances are you’ve met and created with Allison! Name/ Nickname: Alison, but some of my friends and family call me Ali or Al. Favorite color: Hot pink! (And green) How long have you been working at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? I started working in MAKESHOP in August 2012 but I’ve been helping…
Sharks in MAKESHOP
I’ve noticed an interesting theme in the past few stop-motion animations made in MAKESHOP. Apparently, a couple of the paper shadow puppets from our programming in the month of February have made there way over to the animation station. There is a cut out of a shark with a movable mouth that has become the star of our stop-motion animations….
MAKESHOP Panoramas
Last April, MAKESHOP was photographed by a robot. A robot named GigaPan, which uses motors and gears to move the camera and press the shutter button. After all these zoomed-in, super-detailed photos are taken, a special program “stitches” them together so it looks like one long photo that is bigger, longer and more detailed than a regular camera is able to see at…
Meet a Maker!
Meet our fearless leader and MAKESHOP Manager, Adam! Name: Adam Favorite color: Yellow How long have you been working at Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh? August 2010 When did you know you were a maker? As a child, I would help my grandparents to cook, sew, paint, fix things up, and do little odd jobs around the house. I got a sewing…
A classroom visit
I recently had the privilege of completing a residency at a kindergarten class at the Environmental Charter School. The class was exploring simple machines, such as pulleys, gears, inclined planes, wheels and axles, etc. I was asked to help plan and co-teach with their teacher, Jen. I always enjoy visiting schools. Typically, classes come to the Museum to explore and…
“Warmth” Workshops
Our January programmatic theme of “warmth” meant return visits by two great Guest Makers, Theresa Baughman and Deren Guler. Check out some photos from their workshops! “Warm Fuzzies” with Theresa Baughman Theresa, one of our former MAKESHOP interns, set up our workshop area with everything kids needed to sew a pillow that can be warmed up in the microwave. There wasn’t…
Simple machines in MAKESHOP
I recently had the opportunity to work with a kindergarten class from the Environmental Charter School. We had a partnership with them that created a residency for two of our teaching artists to visit the school to plan and co-teach lessons. Nick and I were asked to help with the first grade and a kindergarten classroom. Nick helped the first…