Posts Tagged 'visitor response'

Friday Photos: Words of Kindness

Published February 17, 2017 Friday Photos Closed
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February 12-18 is Random Acts of Kindness week, when individuals are encouraged to make the world a little kinder through small acts of good will. In the spirit of giving back, we have many visitors who stop by the Center for Creative Connections each day to leave behind notes of encouragement at the writing activity. We’ve been collecting these responses over the past several months and wanted to share a selection of our favorite notes with you! Click to enlarge each image and enjoy the thoughtful words of our visitors.

Dear Stranger, Some days are better than others, the important thing is to never give up on finding the positives, even if it seems like all is lost.
You are perfect.
Dear Person, You are unique and beautiful. Make the most of every second and enjoy life. Smile often and laugh at any chance you get. From a college girl.
Dear Human, Do good in everything you do. Be yourself and stay true to who you are…remember there’s only one of you!
I just want you to know you are beautiful. -A friend
Hello, I hope your day is going well and that you get a chance to enjoy the DMA and all it has to offer! Love, Someone Special
Dear Reader, You are beyond incredible. You have made it this far, therefore you are strong. Wish you the best.
Dear people, this is a cool Museum. I really like this art Museum. I really want to come back. This people are really nice. I love this Museum.
Dear Reader, You are smart and you are kind. Someone is thinking of you today. Please remember to be kind to others. You are loved even in your roughest times. Whatever you are going through, remember to look towards light because you are important. You are loved. Sincerely, Raquel.
Live a little. Laugh a lot.

We hope you will all make a visit to the Center for Creative Connections soon and write your own encouraging notes. Even the smallest gesture can make a huge difference!

Andi Orkin
Volunteer Coordinator for Programming

 

Friday Photos: Message Received

Published December 9, 2016 Friday Photos 1 Comment
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Earlier this fall, the Center for Creative Connections installed various communication devices that span several decades of the 20th century. By displaying these works of art together, we encourage visitors to consider the ways that communication has changed over the years and to notice the design ideas that have remained the same.

Recently, we added a writing activity at a nearby table so that visitors would have the opportunity to put down their smartphones and take a moment to hand-write or type a letter. Visitors of all ages have been especially taken by the typewriter. It’s been fun to see the look of joy come over faces of visitors who are sitting down to use a typewriter for the first time, or revisiting an old, familiar experience.

The typed responses we’ve received so far are often cryptic and intriguing like these:

The Minotaur Pumpkin

Though my favorite response has been this hand-written jewel by a 9-year-old:

hand-written1-contrast

Stop by the Center for Creative Connections during your next visit to the DMA and take a moment to share your thoughts or write a letter to a friend.

Jessica Fuentes
Manager of Gallery Interpretation and the Center for Creative Connections

Friday Photos: Visitor Exvotos

Published March 4, 2016 Friday Photos 2 Comments
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Made with inexpensive materials like tin or sheet metal, exvotos are devotional paintings offered in gratitude by everyday people. Individuals who experienced everyday miracles–being cured of an illness or saved from an accident–expressed their gratitude by creating an exvoto composed of both a visual and written description of their experience.

Retablo Dedicated by Rosendo Gonzalez, January 1, 1907, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of Mr. and Mrs. Stanley Marcus Foundation

After the Center for Creative Connections installed eight exvotos from Mexico as part of Maria Teresa Pedroche’s Staff Point of View, we invited visitors to reflect on their personal experiences and prayers by creating their own exvoto in the Interactive Gallery. Visitors can take their creation home with them or add it to C3’s collection of visitor exvotos by placing it in a binder for others to read.

Since we first launched this activity in December 2015, hundreds of visitors have made exvotos expressing gratitude for their family members, their smartphones, their pets, their city, their schools–the list could go on and on! Take a look at a few of the recurring themes that we’ve found in some of our visitors’ exvotos:

Food

“Thankful for tasty fruit!”
“I am thankful for food and water.”

Nature

“I’m so thankful for the beauty & greatness of life and its many features!”
“I am grateful for the sun, water, & the sunbeams’ reflections.”
“I am greatful for the sun.”
“I am thankful for mother nature.”
“I am grateful for nature. “

Art

“I am greatful for religious art. The detail of the work is always so intrinsic and always leaves a profound energy with me.”
“I am grateful that ART came into my life and I enjoy it every single day of my life. “
“I am thankful for the art museum.”

Personal Relationships

“thank you for my Mom and Dad God. “
“I am thankful for my FAMILY.”
“Grateful for allowing to love anyone regardless of what, who, & how they are.”

Obstacles

“I am grateful for adversity. ‘Someone I love once gave me a box full of darkness. It took me years to understand that this, too, was a gift.'”
“I am grateful for our trip to the mountains where my son could recover from his Lefort III surgery.”
“I am grateful for the restored health of my child follow 3 open heart surgeries & neurological issues. My peace came through my abstract “doodle” art. Find the hidden words & images.”
“I am thankful for the disease I was given at birth, cystic fibrosis, because through the years I’ve learned to live each day like it’s my last because it really could be. My mindset has given me the courage to do the impossible”

What are you grateful for? Create your own exvoto the next time you drop by the Center for Creative Connections, and share your creation on Twitter or Instagram using #DMAexvoto.

Paulina Lopez
McDermott Graduate Intern for Visitor Engagement

Friday Photos: The Mother Load Responses

Published January 9, 2015 Friday Photos Closed
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In September, we did a Friday Photos post of The Mother Load Project installation in the Center for Creative Connections. Now that this interactive installation has been on view for a few months, we’d like to share some of the wonderful visitor responses. The Mother Load Project asks visitors to respond to the question:

In your life right now, what do you nurture, and why?

Visitors write their responses on small gray tiles and place their tile on one end of a balance marked for self or for others. I love coming in and seeing which way the balance is leaning on any given day and watching it change course over a matter of hours.

The Mother Load Project Installation_balance

Here are just a handful of the thousands of responses we have received so far.

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View more visitor responses on The Mother Load website and stop by the Center for Creative Connections to contribute your thoughts to this project.

Jessica Fuentes
C3 Gallery Coordinator

The hole goes all the way down to space…

Published October 8, 2010 Friday Photos , People , works of art 1 Comment
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Lee Bontecou, Untitled (35), 1961, welded metal and canvas, Dallas Museum of Art, gift of the Meadows Foundation, Incorporated, 1963.92.FA.

We spend a lot of time here in the Education Department thinking about works of art in our collection and how we can engage visitors with them in provocative, meaningful ways.  The fun part comes when we go out into the galleries to talk to visitors about what they see and what artworks mean to them. 

This past Tuesday afternoon, I spent some time in the Center for Creative Connections talking to a few visitors and one staffer about Lee Bontecou’s Untitled (35), an artwork in the new Encountering Space installation.  Next to Untitled (35), we have a metaphor response wall where visitors can leave their thoughts about the artwork, in response to a few prompts.  I asked visitors a variation of one of the prompts:  What words or pictures come to mind when you look at the work of art?  Below are their responses (look for visitors in the slideshow!). 

It looks like a well, an endless well.  It goes down deep in the ground, so deep you can’t see it.  Not even a flashlight would help.  If you keep imagining, the hole goes all the way down to space, you can see stars.
     -Corinthia, 9 years-old

It looks like something’s in it.
      -Kody, 4 years-old

It’s mysterious, and very intriguing.
      -Brittany, Kody’s mom

Upon walking up, it looks like a carpet design coming out at you.  Like it used to be flat, but it’s coming out at you.  I thought it looked like a volcano, too.
      -Victoria

From far away it looks like a stadium, but then I got closer, and it looks like a building.  It reminds me of the movie Inception–how the buildings come apart.
      -Ivan

It looks like it should be in the Nightmare Before Christmas.
     -Jennifer

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Readers, what words or pictures come to mind when you see this artwork?

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

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