All About Alice Day
Recently at the Carle, guests were able to experience the enchanting world of Alice in Wonderland through art projects, special programs, and a Mad Hatter tea party! The Studio’s Fall Intern, Rochelle Malter shares her thoughts on the day below:
The original story of Alice in Wonderland, written by Lewis Carroll and published in 1865, is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year. Between a display in the Reading Library featuring different illustrated editions of the book and the current visiting exhibit, Magic, Color, Flair: the world of Mary Blair, focusing on the illustrator and animator who created influential concept art for the 1951 animated Disney film, the Carle has been able to showcase beautiful artwork illustrating the bizarre world that the curious young girl visits.
For All About Alice Day, the Art Studio, Auditorium, Reading Library, and Cafe were all devoted to creating a fun experience for guests. The Art Studio’s special project, Queen for a Day, was inspired by the Queen of Hearts in the story. Guests had the opportunity to create their own Queen (or King) of hearts by using a variety of mixed materials in shades of red, white, and black. Many guests enjoyed using white circles of paper as the face of their Queen or King, adding pipe cleaners, bottle caps, mesh, and paint to a cardboard base to construct a body. Both realistic royalty and more abstract pieces prevailed!
In the Auditorium, children’s book historian Leonard Marcus facilitated a discussion about visual interpretation of Alice in Wonderland with artists Barry Moser and Charles Santore, followed by a book signing.
Chief Curator Ellen Keiter led a gallery talk that took guests through the art of Mary Blair and other illustrators who focused on Alice in Wonderland.
In the Cafe, guests were invited to snack on cookies and tea and participate in different activities inspired by the animated movie. Guests used white, red, and black tissue paper and green pipe cleaners to make tissue paper roses. Many guests enjoyed making multi-colored flowers by layering different colors of tissue paper. Some guests used all three colors in their flowers. Guests also had the opportunity to play “Pin the Tail on the Cheshire Cat”. Each participant was given a tail and had to put on sunglasses with blacked-out lenses, and spun around before trying to pin the tail on the paper cat. The guest who pinned the tail closest to the correct spot won a prize.
Guests enjoyed learning more about the curious world of Alice in Wonderland, and everyone got to take home art that they had created!
