CREATIVE VISIONS

NM Museum of Art creates online activities for students, families to make art from home

The New Mexico Museum of Art is putting its efforts into social media these days.

And it’s broadening its audience.

“It’s been a little bit of a whirlwind,” says Sophie Friedman, librarian and archivist at the New Mexico Museum of Art. “Most of our content that we’re creating is happening on Facebook and Instagram. People want

to see what’s happening at the museum and feel engaged when we put the content out on social media.”

Among the resources at nmartmuseun.org are educational materials for kids and families.

“We had a mandate from Department of Cultural Affairs (DCA) that we need to have an educational resource on our website,” Friedman says. “Because kids are doing school from home, we have this supplement. We’ve seen a lot of success with that and our educational workbooks are available on PDF for printing. One of the activities was wordplay, and another was understanding color and lines in art. We’re trying to represent what we do when we’re physically open.”

When the museum would curate a new exhibit, Friedman says, there were engagement stations throughout the galleries.

“Those were interactive areas, not just open to kids. They were open to all visitors. At these stations, visitors could learn about the concept. What we’ve done is take one from the current engagement stations and just put it into an online format. We were presenting extra content the whole time. We’re pushing out online now.”

Another series the museum started is “Spotlight on Art.”

In the series, docents share favorite pieces from the museum’s online collections database on Facebook, along with a short description and participatory prompt.

They will also engage with and answer questions from the public in the comments.

Posts from the museum are happening at least twice a day.

At first, it was to push out content as much as possible.

“We’ve adjusted it to align with what our audience wants,” Friedman says. “We discuss the strategy once a week. The idea is to put out quality over quantity.”

Friedman says another program being offered is “Art From Home: New Mexico’s Young Artists,” open to students under age 18.

They can submit up to three artworks that they have been working on during isolation each day to be shared on

Facebook and Instagram, and a sampling of artworks selected by the education team is shared once a week on Facebook.

Friedman says that at the beginning, about 20 submissions were put onto Instagram and Facebook.

One of those students featured is Weston Keller, a 15-year-old student from Santa Fe. He submitted a digital painting called “Eleven.”

“The kids were really excited to be able to express and share their creativity during this time,” Friedman says.

The museum staff is also running its “Behind the Scenes in Collections.”

The collections team documents its work in the collections. Photos and captions are sent to the education team to post weekly on Instagram and Facebook.

“We’re trying to strike a balance with educational resources,” Friedman says. “It’s to give people an opportunity to choose what they want to engage with. Each one provides a great opportunity to learn.”

The “Spotlight on Art” series is a Facebook feature in which docents choose a favorite pie ece from the online collection, briefly introout duce the piece and then pose questions to the audience to encourage a conversation abo the piece.

This photo was the Museum of Art’s contribution to the #NMtwinning campaign, put together by Vital Spaces. #NMtwinning asks the public to re-create images available in the online collections at the Museum of Art, Georgia O’Keeffe Museum, MOIFA, Coe Center, and IAIA. They then post their re-creations on social media for a chance to win cash prizes. The Museum of Art’s contribution was a comparison between museum educator Amanda Formby’s husband, John, and this photograph of D.H. Lawrence taken by Edward Weston in 1924.

COURTESY OF JENNIFER COUTURE Madison Couture, 11, and Benjamin Couture, 8, of Santa Fe spent time painting rocks to randomly place on doorsteps of the people in their neighborhood to bring them joy during this time. They called it “Operation Joyful Art.” Their mother, Jennifer Couture, shared this photo of them and their work on Instagram and Facebook.

COURTESY OF NEW MEXICO MUSEUM OF ART The museum’s Women Artists series features photos of female artists who lived in New Mexico and gives some biographical information about them. Rebecca Salsbury James lived from 1891 to 1988 and exhibited her work at the Museum of Art as well as MOIFA.

The Color and Line workbook includes information and activities related to art concepts and exhibitions and is aimed at engaging kids, families and teachers at home. It can be downloaded at nmartmuseum.org.