Museum program puts youthful slant on exhibits

While viewing Harvey Dunn’s iconic “Dakota Woman” painting, with its forlorn-looking woman gazing out at the prairie, 10-year-old Kaylee Hart wondered what was on the woman’s mind.

“It looks kind of like she’s lonely, and sort of tired,” Hart said. “Maybe she’s waiting for someone to get done in the field.”

Eight-year-old Bridget Thill had her own theory.

“She looks likes she wants to go somewhere else,” Thill said. “Maybe she’s watching her husband out in the field.”

Then Hart offered this simple yet profound statement, which served to prove the unique perspective that children can bring to art:

“If there was another half of the painting of the woman’s view, that would answer those questions,” Hart said.

Hart, Thill and other students from L.B. Williams got a chance this week to put those ideas to paper as they explored the Dakota Discovery Museum in Mitchell. Students were put into groups and sent into the various art galleries and exhibits to create interpretations, or descriptions, of what they saw. The descriptions will be posted near the museum exhibits for other visitors to see.

Eleven-year-old Abigail Lambert and classmate Alexis Vander Wilt, also 11, explored the re-creation of South Dakota artist Charles Hargens’ studio.

“I like the fact that it’s in a house and they made it look like pioneer times,” Lambert said.

Vander Wilt especially was excited about the posting of the descriptions, which she thinks will give kids a better chance to understand the art.

“I like how it feels like I could actually live here,” Vander Wilt said of the Hargens studio. “It’s just so homey and it looks awesome.”

Museum Director Lori Holmberg and L.B. Williams teacher Cathy Frederickson partnered for the project, which Holmberg hopes to see continue as the galleries change.

“I told the kids when they came in today that we adults sometimes forget that kids have a tendency to look at things a lot differently than we do,” Holmberg said. “We are trying to make our museum reach out to kids more.”

Holmberg said that she checks other museum blogs regularly, and this was one way she found to make the museum more kid- and family-friendly.

The children’s descriptions range from philosophical to observational.

Exploring the claim shack on the first floor of the museum, Gage Fenski, 11, was amazed at how two people could live in such a small space.

“The claim shack is a replica of the original average 1800s home as you see it, small and almost no room to stand,” Fenski wrote. “The bed takes up half the room, so you can tell that this room probably can house one person, but the two plates suggest two people lived here.”

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