Back in 2020, at the height of the pandemic, our team at the Hartman Rock Garden wanted to create a program that would give children and their families a way to engage in a safe, educational outdoor activity. We had started working on this type of program years earlier (way back in 2015 actually) but we kept getting distracted by other work. With tours canceled and stay-at-home orders in effect, we finally had the time to dive back into this important project. Even before I had children of my own, I made a habit of saving every museum education program that I could get my hands on – from famous art museums like MOMA and the Art Institute of Chicago to non-traditional arts organizations like our friends at Nick Englebert’s Grandview. The creative work of museum educators never ceases to amaze me!
We finished a draft program by late spring and asked friends with children, as well as a few homeschool groups, to help us test some crudely printed booklets. We revised the tour by early summer and went to print in July. The final version was divided into three sections, all centered on an active verb: TOUR, DRAW, FIND. This first section was inspired by the gallery guide for MOMA’s 2015 Picasso Sculpture exhibit. Due to the exhibit’s arrangement, with sculptures displayed in wide open spaces, the curators decided to have visitors find pieces using shape-based outlines. I thought this was a excellent way of engaging visitors – and perfect for kids! At Hartman, we created outlines and brief write-ups on five of the garden’s most iconic (or at least representative) objects: School House, Betsy Ross House, God’s Gift to the World, Tree of Life, and the Castle. The second section, DRAW, encourages kids to do just that. The instructions read, “FIND your favorite piece of art in the garden. WALK around the object if possible. What do you like about the object? SKETCH the object in the space provided. Focus on a detail or draw the whole object.” And as I am trained as a humanist, we closed this exercise by encouraging the kids to write a few sentences explaining what they liked about the object. The Kids Tour ends with a FIND exercise, because who does not love a good scavenger hunt!
The 2020 tour was a big success. We printed 2500 books with the help of some amazing donors (see a full list below). This might seem like a small quantity, but we have always made a practice of printing a limited run the first time, which allows us to evaluate the finished program in action and then make improvements before a second printing. After observing school and family groups use the tour over two summers, we got to work on a revised tour in 2022. This time around we engaged Andy Hayes with Hucklebuck Design Studio, who helped us reimagine the piece in our now-standard 11″x4.5″ format. We design in these dimensions because it is comfortable to hold, can be slipped into a back pocket or purse, and because we can gang book side-by-side in our outdoor kiosk (thereby displaying twice as many!). Andy also tied the design into our brand standards, which he also developed, and made it look cool. This is especially important for those kids at the upper end of our 7-12 age bracket. My favorite part of the new tour is the revised FIND exercise, which is also included in new Highlight Tour for older kids and adults. This allows the whole family to explore the Hartman Rock Garden together.
Stop out with our kids, grandkids, or students to take Kids Tour sometime soon. It is always available, and always free. No kids… no worries. This tour is fun for adults as well!
Supporters
A huge thank you to everyone who supported the development and printing of the Hartman Kids Tour: Mark Grimes, Benjamin Steel, Teresa Demana, Gabriele Leventhal, Marta Wojcik, Marlies Hemmann, Greg Rogers, John Landess, Leah Hill, Joan Elder, Susan Chiles, Brian Kampman, Daragh Porter, Jessimi Jones, Rita Lane, Kali Lawrence, Kim Newell, and Elaine Rourke.
