My First Visit to an Art Gallery

After the children participated in displaying their own art prints at school, we decided to visit a local art gallery to view the prints of artist Ricardo Roig.

Welcome to the Gallery

Mr. Johnson: Do you recognize any of the places in the prints?

Yes. A place where I go dancing in Jersey City.

The river.

Path Station and the trains

The W Hotel.

The big city where Daddy works.

The children watched a video of the artist’s process. They noticed his dirty hands, the many paint colors, a knife to make the stencil for his prints, blue tape holding up images for inspiration at his table.

Together, we looked closely at one print, Sinatra Park Sunset. We counted the number of different colors we saw. Not just the number of colors but the number of tones within each color. We counted five tones of green.

One child noticed the bench in the print and that led us into a conversation about Mr Roig’s art being observational, not imaginary.

Linked to our interest in displaying art, we asked, “Why are all the frames white or black?” Gallery Assistant, Ms Valerie answered, “Mr Roig wants everyone to be able to imagine the print in their home, no matter what color their walls. But when someone buys a piece of his art they can choose any color for their frame.”

What a fantastic field trip! Thank you to everyone at Roig Collection for welcoming us so warmly and the parents who accompanied us.