A few more things found on the internets that I think are worth passing on.
I am not a big fan of what Valentine's Day has become. I don't deplore romance or flowers or even the occasional tacky gift and I think it's good for us to have a day reserved to remind us to show a little love. My issue with Valentine's Day is the lazy consumerism of it all. IMHO Valentines Day is a holiday for simple handmade expressions. Flowers and chocolates are fine but apply a little creativity and personalization to it in some way. Valentine's Day was made for crayons, scissors, and glue sticks.
One year I made a "Vouchers Of Love" coupon book to go with a few bottles of K8's favorite wine. Another year I bought 50 Spider-Man valentines, wrote a different little note on each one, and hid them all over in K8's stuff. This year most of my handmade efforts have gone to Q's valentines for preschool.
This past weekend Q and I made it out to Medicine Lake for the Art Shanty Project. Since then I've been pondering getting involved next year and trying to build an ice shack of my own. I have no idea what I would do but you know it would be kid oriented.
You still have a little bit of time to make it out onto the ice to check out the wackiness for yourself. It all ends Feb. 14.
For those of you that have been reading this blog for a while you'll know we used to hit Arty Pants at The Walker on a very regular basis. Then Q started preschool which, along with Ozzi's nap, created a bit of a scheduling conflict. Well, today I decided we would go right after picking Q up from school and get there for the latter half. I'm really glad we did. Not only did we get to spend some much needed extra time out of the house but Ellen from Art with Ellen was running the activities in the Art Lab.
We took classes with Ellen about two years ago and she still remembered Q's name. ELLEN IS AMAZING. If you are looking for a class for your little one, sign them up for an Art with Ellen class. You will not be disappointed. I have never in my life met anyone that is that consistently happy and energetic while teaching children. If you don't believe me, go to Arty Pants on Feb. 10th or the 24th. She'll be there... and hopefully so will we, even if we're a bit late.
The beautiful children's book about friendship, Lost and Found by Oliver Jeffers, has been adapted to a 30 minute animated film by STUDIOaka and broadcast over the Holidays on the UK's Channel 4. As far as I can tell from the trailer and comments from the Brits who had the pleasure of watching the whole thing, the stunningly gorgeous animation applied to the super touching story is an absolute masterpiece.
The DVD is scheduled for release March 23rd. I'm not sure if that includes the US or if it is just the UK... though I think I'd be willing to pay the extra shipping if I had too.
Oodles of hand made crafts, art, and contests with celebrity judges. Need I say more? No Coast Craft-O-Rama this Sat. and Sun. at the Midtown Global Market.
Here in the Twin Cities we have a seemingly endless supply of classes and activities for little kids. From art to ballroom dancing to music to Chinese, with just a little searching you can fill "_______ for kids" with most any subject that you want your child to get an early start on. Well, almost every subject. Despite Minneapolis/St. Paul being home to several music schools, I can not find a single Beatboxing for Kids class. What the hell yo? I thought the Minniapple was supposed to be all progressive and shit.
So MacPhail Center for Music, to help you get with the times I've compiled a short list of possible instructors for your new Beatboxing course:
Biz Markie, Nobody beats the Biz!
James Burchfield
Gregg Pattillo
or The Fat Boys might be looking for work these days.
Today at Arty Pants Q met his future self. It appears Q will, in his early 20's, be employed at The Walker reading children's books to kids more interested in the ginormous freight elevator right next to the "story time" area.
Seriously this dude looked exactly like a grown up version of Q and had the same name.
Now where did I put the keys to the DeLorean.
When looking for events for the the whole family on the weekends, I've found that the best way to get K8 on board is to find something that bears possibility of her getting unique handmade earings. That was the case for the Stone Arch Arts Festival and is the case with Art in The Market at Midtown Global Market this Saturday.
Art in The Market has been happening once a month since March up through August 9th so we're jumping in at the tail end. The event showcases 10 local artists and their paintings, photographs, jewelry, etc that were all selected by a panel of judges.
If you've never been to the Midtown Global Market you should check it out this Saturday... or any other day if supporting the local art scene isn't your thing. If for nothing else go there sometime for lunch for the exotic array of food all under one roof.
We've got a heap of stuff going on this weekend but I'm still hoping that we can make it to the Stone Arch Festival of the Arts. With a variety of food, music, art, cars, and kids activities, there's something for everyone. And while you're in the neighborhood you might as well stop by Pacifier and check out their big weekend sale with 70% off the clearance racks.
If you're going to the festival on Saturday you can try and get there early and hit the Mill City Farmers Market first.
Are 3 year olds allowed in Nye's Polka Bar?
I was just about to post about how this Tuesday is the day to go to Arty Pants at the Walker because of the two great exhibits in the Sculpture Gardens right now. But now that I check the Walkers schedule I realize that Design for the Other 90% doesn't open until 11am (same time the museum opens up) and the artist-designed mini golf is only open Wed. - Sun.
We'll probably still be going, partly so I can voice my opinion about the mini golf not being available before Arty Pants to some poor Walker employee that will obviously not give a shit.
If you happen to find me in the Sculpture Gardens before 11, I've got 2 free admission tickets for the museum.
Update: There were more people at Arty Pants today then I have ever seen. We made time to go through the Design for the Other 90% exhibit which was pretty cool and were able to at least explore the mini golf, albeit without balls. Here's some pictures to motivate some of you to go next time:
Target Family Day at MIA was great. The highlight, making shadow puppets.
K8 made an Ozzi puppet:
Not this MIA...
This MIA.
This Sunday from 11am - 5pm Minneapolis Institute of Art is hosting Target Family Day. The event is chock full of workshops and activities for the whole family. They are even having a family yoga class. It should be a good time as long as it isn't as packed as Rock the Cradle was. We intend to be at the door when they open. If painting live (nude!? probably not.) models and seeing me embarrass myself attempting some kiddie yoga isn't enough to get you there, the Alec Soth: Sleeping by the Mississippi exhibit should be.
Edit: I just noticed that at 2:52 on the MIA video Mike D and MCA of the Beastie Boys make a cameo.
I'm really looking forward to Grand Old Days this Sunday. Not only are we going to a friends house that is even closer to Grand than our own, but my favorite local artist, Jao, will be performing at the intersection of Albert and Grand.
If you plan to go to Grand Old Day make sure you check her out. She will be performing at 12:30, 1:30, 2:30, and 3:30.
Now if only I could convince her to paint something for the wall in our newly remodeled office. More on that tomorrow.
SOME!!! Y Water is the coolest kid product I've seen in a long time. It's organic vitamin water for kids that comes in these funky designed bottles that can be connected together to build whatever you want. I'm already fantasizing of a giant double helix of water bottles in the playroom. Imagine instead of throwing out or recycling your water bottles you reuse and collect them as toys. Brilliant!!
Even their website is great. Super interactive and fun. Just like their product.
Unfortunately as of right now it's not available in MN. I'll do some heavy lobbying at the Coop next time I'm there. I can only imagine the cost of FedExing a case or two here from LA.
After many revisions our play garden in the backyard is coming along. On Sunday I got the framework done for what will hence forth be known as Nature Fort, formerly know as The Gourd Fort. Turns out the growing season for Bird House Gourds is really long. But thanks to the great employees at Mother Earth Gardens I found some climbing beans and cherry tomatoes that should work great instead. I can see why the City Pages named them Best Garden Center of the Twin Cities.
In addition to Nature Fort, we've created a new area for perennials. I don't remember everything we planted in there but mostly it's poppies. For a path through the flowers I used some small logs I had and buried them half in the ground to make a path of "balancing posts". Q's kung-fu training has begun.
I'll post real pictures of everything on a more ambitious day. For now I just need to get to sleep so we can go run around in a proper garden, the sculpture gardens at the Walker, before we hit Arty Pants tomorrow.
Since Belinda and the Svenomenon are telling me that today would be the only day worth crawling out of our caves for I decided to double up on adventure with the boys. This morning we went to M.I.A., home for lunch and diaper changes, then off to the Minnesota Zoo for a few smelly hours.
At both locations, and on the other days that we've ventured outside this "spring" with our Phil & Teds Sport, I've noticed that it's a bit like driving an Aston Martin around town... in Roseau. All the Graco pushers we pass are pointing and staring at the stroller as though it was levitating. Several people have actually stopped us to ask us for autographs... ah, I mean, ask about the stroller. Now I know how Brad Pitt feels all the time.
All this attention can be a pain in the ass. Or, if your Omarosa-like ego hungers for reaffirmation that you are indeed cool, as is my case, the Phil & Teds was the best money we've ever spent. Never mind the fact that the stroller currently sits in the trunk of a car worth less than the actual stroller. You gotta have your priorities straight.
As a follow-up to an earlier post about Q's love for Van Gogh; As soon as we entered the Impressionists gallery, Q correctly pointed out the Van Gogh on the wall amongst all the other paintings.
Ok, maybe genius is a bit strong. I'm pretty sure MoMa will not be calling any time soon but for a kid that's just 2 months into 3, he seems to be pretty advanced in his art knowledge.
First, all his paintings and drawings seem to have a distinct style to them. In fact most remind me a bit of Miro... just lacking any real artistic skill. I'm not sure if this is common in his age group or not.
His other, much more amazing, artistic talent isn't in the creating but actually recognizing a specific artists work. We own a few post cards of various paintings that we've picked up over time and have them up on the magnetic wall in the playroom. A few are Van Gogh's. Quite a while back Q happened to point to the Starry Night postcard and ask, "What's that?" I explained to him that it was a painting by an artist named Van Gogh. Now here is where he started to amaze me. On his own, he began picking out the other Van Gogh paintings we have around the house and correctly identifying them as Van Gogh paintings. We have tons of other prints etc from other artists around the house and not once have I heard him incorrectly identify them as Van Gogh's.
This brings us to our outing today to Wet Paint on Grand Ave. If you're unfamiliar, it is an art supply store near Macalester College that is packed with stuff. We went there to pick up a little kid scissors and a glue stick for Q. While we are walking around he stops and points out a Van Gogh coloring book saying, "Look Papa. Van Gogh painting." The reason this was so amazing is that the cover had the Portrait of the Postman Joseph Roulin on it. To my knowledge, Q has never seen that painting, much less had it identified to him as a Van Gogh. It seems even more amazing when you consider that all the Van Gogh stuff we have around the house is landscapes, none of his portraits.
So, is this weird for a three year old?
Needless to say, we couldn't leave without buying the coloring book.
