Young Artists Use Museum Specimens As Their Models

[image]:  ARTISTS AT EXHIBIT MUSEUM: Young artists in an Ann Arbor Recreation Department’s Creative Activities class, taught by Mrs. Fran Rinkel, are at work in the University’s Exhibit Museum.

Plenty Of Still Life:

Young Artists Use Museum Specimens As Their Models

Prehistoric skeletons, artifacts of man and mounted specimens of animals and birds in the University Exhibit Museum are used as models by two groups of young artists who participate in the Ann Arbor Recreation Department’s Creative Activities Program.

Irving R. Reimann, museum director, has arranged for the students to meet at the museum on Tuesdays and Fridays after school.

Mrs. Fran Rinkel, water colorist and writer, teaches the Tuesday class. Mrs. Alice Crawford, local artist and muralist who within the past year has had a show of her work in Washington. D. C., teaches the Friday classes.

Young people in both groups have been chosen from Creative Activities classes held at various public schools in the city and through recommendations from junior and senior high school staff members.

The museum art classes offer a closer relationship with nature through application of various art forms by study of convolutions of shells and structures of animals, rocks and plant forms.

Students use drawing boards which may be moved easily from display to display. They work with water color, charcoal, crayons, pen, ink and chalk.

The U-M has co-operated with the Creative Activities Program for a number of years. Classes for advanced art students have met in the Art Museum Memorial Hall for several years with the encouragement of Charles Sawyer, director of the art museum.

Two classes a week are held in the Art Museum this year—one taught by Mrs. Joan Beaver on Tuesdays and the other taught by Mrs. Suzanne Stephanson on Saturday mornings.

Students in the Art Museum classes use the permanent collection and the changing exhibits as examples for studio problems.

Work done by students in the Exhibit Museum and the Art Museum classes will be displayed during a show scheduled in mid-May.