AMSET’s Free Family Arts Day

Oh where, oh where has the summer gone? As back to school quickly approaches (with many already in school), the Art Museum of Southeast Texas (AMSET) is inviting children and their families to finish their summer with an artistic flair and join in AMSET’s Free Family Arts Day on Saturday, Aug. 13, from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m.

Children and their families are encouraged to explore the museum and to “Don’t Mess with Texas, Mess with Art” by creating artwork with recycled materials. Art activities will also correlate with AMSET’s current exhibitions, “Keliy Anderson-Staley: Documents & Dwellings,” which is on display until Sept. 18.

The exhibition includes the installation of: “Shelter in Place,” a 10 foot by 10 foot house structured covered in over 560 tintype portraits; “The Baking Pan Series: An Incomplete Family History,” a selection of antique baking pans with emulsified images on their surfaces; “Father, Dad: Tom, Bill,” a grid of tintypes of Anderson-Staley’s biological and adoptive fathers; “Raw Materials in War and Peace,” multiple volumes of palimpsest books made with prints and cyanotypes; and “Paper Quilts,” 8 foot by 5 foot quilts made from notebook pages, handwritten letters, and photographs. The exhibition will demonstrate Anderson-Staley’s unique and personal investigation into the definitions of home, family and community.

Children and their families are encouraged to explore the museum and to “Don’t Mess with Texas, Mess with Art” by creating artwork with recycled materials inspired by Anderson-Staley. The exhibition demonstrates Anderson-Staley’s unique and personal investigation into the definition of home, family, and community.

At AMSET’s quarterly Family Arts Days, the hands-on art activities help children and their families explore the artwork on display and use their creativity to make artwork in the same styles as those artists.

Children can create Sun Prints, Recycled Collages and Accordion-style Books as well as Draw with Light, Scratch Art, and enjoy a Portrait Station. Complimentary cookies and punch will be provided. A concession stand serving ballpark-style food will be available. Throughout the day, AMSET will also draw winners for backpacks full of school supplies for the new school year.

This Family Arts Day will also include two live demonstrations from Gator Country at 11 a.m. and 12:30 p.m.

Admission is free and open to the public with all art materials provided. AMSET is located at 500 Main St. in downtown Beaumont.

For more information, follow AMSET on social media, visit amset.org or call (409) 832-3432.

The purpose of the Art Museum of Southeast Texas is to collect, preserve, exhibit and interpret the visual arts with special attention to the fine and folk arts of the 19th-21st centuries by providing for conservation, preservation and exhibition of collections including docent-led tours, publications, symposia, film, lectures and interdisciplinary programs.

-Chad Cooper, Entertainment Editor