VERO BEACH — It was billed as a kids’ event, but people of all ages crowded into the entrance to enjoy a free day of visual and performing arts at the Vero Beach Museum of Art Saturday.
Over more than three decades, the festival has evolved as the museum’s facilities, staff and volunteers changed. In the early years it was mostly massive tents filled with art and craft-making projects, but as the Center for the Arts was re-branded as a museum and classroom and auditorium space allowed, activities moved indoors and branched out into the hallways and galleries and the sculpture garden.
Months in the making, the festival was a culmination of many volunteer and staff hours in preparation and coordination, plus a total of 46 volunteers from all over the county who worked all the activities and craft stations the day of the event.
Volunteers like Patricia Miller are happy to help out because the Children’s Art Festival, she said, helps expand the audience of people who patronize the museum after the find out the wonders it has to offer.
“It’s a wonderful event that brings in people who wouldn’t normally come to the museum,” Miller said. “We like to encourage children to be introduced to the museum and this is a wonderful way to introduce them.”
Because, it seems, any day could be a free day of fun at the museum, as its website states, “Admission to general exhibitions and education wing is free. For some special exhibitions, a variable admission fee will apply.”
The 31st Annual Children’s Art Festival showcased not only the museum’s collections and visiting exhibits and the potential for art education and fun to be found there, but also some of Vero’s performing arts opportunities for kids. Piano and organ students from the Lozada School of Music performed in the Leonhardt Auditorium, as did the St. Edward’s Fifth Grade Band, actors from Riverside Children’s Theatre, Christi’s Dancers, Art21 Video Screening.
The Holmes Great Hall played host to the Treasure Coast Elementary Chorus, the Imagine School Orff Ensemble, The Osceola Magnet Drum Group, the Rosewood Magnet Performers, Vero Classical Ballet and the Big Fun Elementary Paint Pour.
Music, drama and students painting artworks on the spot livened up the Buck Atrium as children sought out the classroom craft areas. Once the painting and cutting and stamping and pasting was done, kids emerged with original artwork treasures for their refrigerator art galleries at home, or at grandma’s house. The petite artists even decorated white shopping bags in which to carry all their treasures away from the museum.
In every gallery and hallway, guards stood vigilant to protect the precious collections from sticky, paint-stained fingers. They admitted that their task was a bit more difficult with more than 3,200 people wandering the corridors than the average day at the museum.
Museum hours are 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Tuesdays through Saturdays and 1 to 4:30 p.m. Sundays.
Hopefully, volunteers said, some of those folks who came for a free sample of the museum will come back for a longer visit, or maybe sign up for a class, a summer camp, or even become a museum member. More than 200 youngsters took advantage of the free youth membership signup on Saturday, which will invite them back for about five mornings of special fun at the museum in the coming year.
Student artwork adorned the Holmes Great Hall as the public filtered in and out for ongoing performances. From simple marker drawings of the Angry Birds characters to tissue paper collages pasted carefully by little hands, the works displayed showed the creativity of the area schools’ youngest budding artists.
The festival was set to end at 3 p.m., but visitors were still arriving to explore the museum and its gardens more than one hour later. After the official close of the festival, winners were announced from the 2012 Indian River County Juried Art Exhibition.
