QMA Hosts Boo Spooktacular

Kids & Adult Programs at Queens Museum of Art

October 24, 2011 / Flushing Neighborhood / Queens Buzz. The second annual Boo Spooktacular was attended by about 100 people; comprised primarily of families and children. Attendance was up a bit this year and the event ran from 2 to 5 pm.

The event contained plenty of artistic and socially interactive features, a description of which, I will convey herein. Generally they had decorated the eastern wing of the second floor of the museum overlooking the Unisphere in Flushing Meadows Corona Park. But they had also set up the large elevator with a Betty Boo(p) installation [slide 4752] and had lined the long corridors leading to the wing with devils [slides 4726, 4732, 4743, 4744] and other scary figures, like author of the macabre, Edgar Allan Poe [slide 4648].

Queens Museum of Art Hosts Kids Halloween Party

There were plenty of Halloween adventures along the way. One of the museum educators, Paul Lambermont, provided free face painting. In the slide show you can see him giving Catalina Esguerra, one of the New New Yorkers program volunteers, a beautiful face atop a beautiful face [slides 4745, 4746]. There were five other volunteers from the New New Yorkers [adult] program that helped with the festivities. The cute little crayola to your left was escorted by her mom to the Boo Spooktacular at the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing.

Also along the way I found Pixy Liao, another of the museum educators, who was setting up the photo booth in the spooky forest [slides 4740 – 42]. Edgar Allan Poe hovered over me as I passed by onto the east wing of the museum.

The Art of Making War at the Queens Museum of Art

It seems the fate of mankind is to continually fight and this Halloween was no exception. The ghouls and goblins had just declared war on one another [slide 4715Diya]. Mike Estabrook and Ernest Concepcion were the art ‘generals’ who led a drawing board war between the ghouls and goblins, with support from the kids. I’m happy to report that nobody died, in fact no one was even injured and the war came to a ‘draw’.

I missed the emotional pumpkin making workshop, where kids were encouraged to express a wide range of emotions through their pumpkin. There was a bit of storytelling going on as well. And at the far end of the room there was a large tarot card reading chicken and nest. The whole affair culminated in a parade around all five boroughs of New York City in about five to ten minutes, thanks to the small scale model of the city resident in the Queens Museum of Art.

Boo Spooktacular Collaborators at QMA

The event was a collaborative effort by QMA which had hired Jenny Romaine of Great Small Works puppeteering collective [GSW] in Brooklyn, and by enlisting the support of staff and volunteers involved in the Queens Museum of Art programs. While GSW made many of the costumes worn by staff, some of the puppets, such as Edgar Allan Poe, the chihuahuas and the camera head, were borrowed from the Brooklyn puppet library at Brooklyn College. Queens Teens, a group of volunteers associated with QMA, also made some of the puppets such as the clown in the spooky forest.

Jenny, the troll, is shown revving up the troops just before the little rascals began to invade the haunted fortress at the Queens Museum of Art in Flushing Corona Park in Queens.

Slide Show Of Queens Museum Of Art - Boo Spooktacular

Click this link to go directly to the photo album containing slides of the Boo Spooktacular at the Queens Museum Of Art. Use the arrow on the slide show control panel to view photos at your own speed.

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Kids & Adult Programs at QMA

Kids Programs at the Queens Museum of Art

The Queens Museum of Art runs a number of art programs for kids. Every week they host a Sunday workshop for family 1.30 – 4.30 pm. These are free with museum admission and they are supported by Queens Teens [see more about below].

On the second Sunday of every month, the Queens Museum of Art provides free admission. On Second Sundays, as the program is called by the museum, family-friendly and kid-friendly performances and museum tours are given by staff and volunteers. This program is funded by Met Life.

The Queens Museum of Art also runs a series of summer camps. This program starts right after July 4th during which the Queens Museum hosts three, two week summer camp sessions. The summer camps combine studio work from 9 am – 3 pm in museum and is targeted for children ages 7 – 11. Each day QMA staff and volunteers teach two media classes per session. One involves traditional media like painting, and the other focuses on contemporary media like learning about art installations. Students are provided with a lot of gallery time, during which they can view and discussing art work, and they are also given some time to run around in park.

Queens Teens – Art Programs at the Queens Museum of Art

This program is a collaboration between the Queens Museum of Art and the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts [FSSA]. Participants must be students of the Frank Sinatra School of the Arts. Students come once a week on Wednesdays for after school programs and are given the opportunity to work at the museum on weekends for stipends. This is a career development program, which is supported by the Queens Museum of Art educators. The thrust of this program is to show contemporary artists work. The woman to your left is a volunteer at the Boo Spooktacular.

Adult Programs at the Queens Museum of Art

Meet the new New Yorkers

This program is targeted toward new immigrant adults, and hence courses are taught only in languages other than English. Classes generally encompass studio art and digital technology. For example this fall they’re teaching photography and photoshop in Mandarin Chinese and Spanish. The classes change with the seasons and include courses such as painting in Spanish, digital story telling Spanish and Mandarin Chinese, traditional painting in Korean and so forth. Typically classes run two months [8 weekly sessions] and are held on the weekend.

Many thanks to Lauren Schloss, QMA Director of Education, for providing a good portion of the information contained herein.

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