Me with Alex Nicholis, curator and interim executive director of the museum
… attended the opening reception of my exhibit at Studio M in the Massillon Museum on Friday night, supporting me with their presence, kind words and/or purchases. The exhibit is open until September 19; museum hours are Tuesday-Saturday 9:30-5, Sun. 2-5; free admission. 121 Lincoln Way East.
Before our family participated in this activity, we had no idea what mandalas were. We just kind of stumbled upon it; I was looking for something different to do with the family today, and saw that the Massillon Museum had their monthly “Do the MassMu” event. Each month (first Saturday) they have a free art activity, snack and sometimes a special museum tour. Today an art therapist led the mandala-making activity. In a few words, creating a mandala (which means circle in Sandrit) can be very therapeutic. Everyone in our family made one – basically you start by tracing a circle on your paper and you go from there. At first the kids were like, “This is it?? This is all we came here for?” but by the time we were all done everyone was strangely satisfied. It was especially sweet to share the activity as a family (we “warmed up” by tracing each other’s hands on the same piece of paper; that will be a keepsake too).
Half the museum space was closed, so the only real exhibit was that of Nelly Toll. Nelly lived in Poland and during the Nazi occupation she and her mother lived in hiding. During that time she created (at the age of about 10) many watercolors, which somehow survived. In the ’90s she incorporated some of these images into collages (several are now at the Holocaust Museum in D.C.). This was my children’s first introduction to the Holocaust, and I struggled with how to convey the horror of it without totally freaking them out.
For a small museum, they sure do big things.