Outreach through OctoberCraft

Dia de los Muertos arts & crafts

Looking for ways to reach out to the community and prove that a museum can be a fun place for families to spend the day sometimes takes more than talking about the cool exhibits you have and what kids can learn.  Sometimes, you just have to focus on the fun and let the learning creep up on your visitors- especially the younger ones.

Learning to use a sewing machine

To get families excited about coming out over this last weekend, we put on our first- and hopefully not last!- OctoberCraft. A day of fun, costumes, arts and crafts. We advertised through Facebook, community bulletin boards, and word of mouth.  We crossed out fingers that we might get 20 people to come out. By the end of Saturday, over 70 people had come out and everyone seemed to hav a good time.

For the past 3 years Bob Diaz has come out for Halloween to do crafts and stories centered on Dia de los Muertos.  This year we also had exhibit designer, photographer, and bag-maker Michael Field and his wife Stephanie Bedwell come out to do bags.  Sticking with the Dia de los Muertos theme, kids drew colorful skulls on fabric, then learned how to use a sewing machine to turn their fabric into bags perfect for an evening of trick-or-treating.  For many of the kids, this was their first time on a sewing machine, and several took to it like pros!

After making their bags, the kids discovered that Michael wasn't just great on a sewing machine- he's pretty awesome behind a camera too! His seasonal exhibit: PHOTOLAB: Michael Field: Designer, Hiker, Photographer is currently on display in the museum, and they were excited to see the different hiking bags he'd made and compare them to the bags they had just learned to make.

Modeling their bags, and Michael's hiking bags in PHOTOLAB: Michael Field: Designer, Hiker, Photographer

And no craft event is complete without the chance to do some coiled clay! Kids in costumes ranging from princesses to skeletons to spacemen practiced making clay pots and 'spooky lanterns'. It was great watching everyone have fun, and also getting the chance to engage with the exhibits in between their crafts.  This was a successful event that brought families out to the museum and gave them a chance to see the full range of what we have to offer them in a relaxed and fun atmosphere.