Designing new museums with Clark Construction

Written by Lorena Palacios
Communications Intern
@DCSCORESinterns

(View our 2017 Summer Camps photo album)

L'Enfant Plaza will soon be home to the International Spy Museum, and our Truesdell campers had the opportunity to check out the new site thanks to Clark Construction.

The excited campers spent the first part of their field trip hanging out with a couple of Clark employees that gave some fun facts on the new museum. The kids also learned about other notable buildings in the city that were built by Clark.

The Verizon Center, RFK Stadium, Nationals Park, the National Museum of African American History, and the list continues! All the campers were amazed to learn about all the cool projects Clark has been a part of over the years, which served as inspiration for their fun activity ahead.

Everyone's creative skills were tested with the task of designing unique museum ideas and presenting their final models.

Sports was the big theme as the majority of the groups designed soccer museums.

9-year-old Kiomara was very excited to present her group's National Soccer Museum. "It will include all the best soccer players. Messi! Ronaldo! Maradona!" said the eager camper.

There was, however, one that stood out from the rest with their innovative idea, the National Candy Museum. This concept grabbed everyone's attention, including some of the Clark employees that were big fans of the free candy bag idea.

Next up the kids received a visit from the site's superintendent, who talked to the kids about his responsibilities and what goes into building the new spy museum.

"It was great having the kids out here," said Stephanie Emore, an engineer for Clark. "For those that were here last year, it's nice for them to see how we started from nothing to a full building now."

Finally, is there any other way for DC SCORES to end a fun-filled day than with a soccer game? The Clark employees joined the kids on the field to conclude another great week of summer camp.

Thank you again to our longtime partner and current reigning DC SCORES Cup champions, Clark Construction, for spending the afternoon with the Truesdell campers.

Learning Local: campers follow up time at National Gallery with visit to DC Arts Center

Edgar, eating the art-- I mean, bacon.

Written by Meredith Daniel
Communications Intern

As camp came to a close last week, Marie Reed wrapped up the summer with a visit to the Annual Wallmountables Exhibit at District of Columbia Arts Center (DCAC) in Adams Morgan, a gallery that provides space for local emerging artists to showcase their work.

This visit to DCAC strategically piggybacked off of a previous field trip: the scavenger hunt at the National Gallery of Art.  

“We visited DCAC this week because I wanted to show the kids that good art isn’t only in a gallery, protected by guards, and worth millions of dollars,” said Nikki Allinson, Community Outreach Coordinator. “Their community, family members, and friends are also capable of creating impressive art. Sometimes, art can be really intimidating to create-- I wanted to help them shatter that illusion this summer.”

If campers’ reactions to DCAC mixed media pieces were any indication, they appreciated the contrast between the two types of galleries. Campers not only oohed and ahhed over eye-catching neon colors and $300 price tags, but also realized that DCAC’s approachable nature gave them a chance to interact with gallery art in new ways.

One camper, Edgar, discovered the power of forced perspective when he posed with a mounted photograph of a plate of bacon, a piece by Rebecca Gordon. His creativity generated a wave of laughter among other campers once they realized it looked like Edgar was actually eating the bacon strips right off the yellow plate!

Want to see the Wallmountables Exhibit for yourself? You still have time-- it runs until August 25.

Summer camp participants join kajeet volunteers, visit National Gallery of Art for a scavanger hunt

Written by Genia Rosenblum
Guest Writer

As the DC SCORES summer camp art specialist, I was tasked with coming up with a week worth of lessons to teach to an excited, rambunctious, creative group of DC SCORES students.

After learning that we'd be taking a field trip to the National Gallery, I decided to plan the week around creating  portraits and sculptures inspired by the artwork found in the National Gallery East and West. The kids were super excited to get to paint and to then of see some of the artwork we were studying in person.

When we arrived at the museum last Thursday, it was HOT outside! The wonderful volunteers of DC SCORES’ partner kajeet -- they brought 20 enthusiastic employees! -- were there to help us wrangle the students and get the scavenger hunt underway. The students and their leaders set off looking for different works of art scattered throughout the museums.

I think the volunteers had just as much fun as the kids did trying to find all the artwork on the scavenger hunt.

We ended the scavenger hunt in the National Gallery East. The Panthers were our winners, with 29 works found in both buildings!

As an educator, it's always heartwarming to see students get excited about learning and exploring new things. They were pointing at sculptures, asking questions and wanting to know more about what was in front of them.

When we returned to the studio the next day, we made object sculptures inspired by what we had seen in the gallery the day before. EVERYONE had something to create!