Museum Musings
Critter Folk
Inspired by Miz Thang
In November, Miz Thang met with
the teachers and me to discuss ways
to engage students in learning about
folk art. We decided that students
would create birdhouses that were
in the form of birds. Before the work-
shop, Miz Thang cut out and painted
a base coat on the bird forms, which
would later be glued to soup cans.
The birdhouses were to be completed
by the day of the exhibit opening.
Left to right: Finished birdhouses. Exhibition postcard.
be open until May 22, 2009.
The teachers, all working
toward their initial certification in Georgia Southern’s
Masters of Art in Teaching
program, were tasked with
selecting the artworks they
wanted to include in the
exhibit and creating lesson plans to teach in their
classrooms. By November,
they had selected nearly one
hundred works by southern
Kathy Hubbard
folk artists.
This past fall, I collaborated A grant from the Georgia Grass-with six public school art roots Artists Projects and a university
teachers to curate and design Campus Life Enrichment Committee
an exhibit entitled Critter grant provided the funds to invite
Folk for the Betty Foy Sanders depart- two well-known southern folk art-ment of art at Geor- ists to talk about
gia Southern Uni- The gallery was filled their work and to
versity. The theme lead workshops
with children searching
of the exhibit is for children. We
for “a bird of blue” or “
folk art “critters”— invited Miz Thang,
crocodiles, chickens, a regional folk art-
an owl that says hoo hoo”
cows, snakes, ele- ist, to do a work-
or a “brave mouse.”
phants, cats—from shop for students in
the Smith Callaway Banks Southern an after-school program as part of the
Folk Art Collection at Georgia South- exhibition opening, and Peter Loose
ern University. People of all ages are of Hull, Georgia, to do a demonstra-drawn to these sometimes scary, tion with university students and a
sometimes silly critters. The exhibit workshop with school children.
opened on December 5, 2008 and will
Student Involvement
The reception and the Miz Thang
workshop were the culmination of
many hours working together to
make Critter Folk a reality. On the
day of the opening, twenty-five first
through third graders arrived, ready
to make folk art with Miz Thang.
Students drew an animal of their
choice on paper with colored pencils
before starting the birdhouse. They
drew, painted, and glued found objects
onto their birdhouses.
When they finished their birdhouses, students went into the
exhibit for a tour with copies of a
Critter Folk scavenger hunt poem to
read together. The gallery was filled
with children searching for “a bird of
blue” or “an owl that says hoo hoo” or
a “brave mouse.” The collector Smith
Banks was there in the gallery, enjoying the fact that his collection was
being used in a way that was truly
delighting the children’s creative
senses. They loved it and so did their
parents, who joined them to visit the
exhibit.
Kathy Hubbard is art education graduate
program director at Betty Foy Sanders
Department of Art at Georgia Southern
University in Statesboro, Georgia. kathy-hubbard@georgiasouthern.edu
class.georgiasouthern.edu/art/south-ern_folk_art_collection.html
www.mizthangsworld.com
peterloose.com
Go to schoolartsonline.com
for a list of materials, and for
the critter folk scavenger hunt
worksheet.
