Beth Skogen
It’s a family affair: MMOCA volunteers Renee Gavigan (center) and Molly Olive demonstrate the art of plaster sand casting at Warner Park to 5-year-old Xander Spinler and his 2-year-old brother, Milo. Mom Anjee Sorge (left), and grandmother Sandi Daniel (right), look on.
Five-year-old Xander Spinler stands on the beach looking down at the sand. “Do I have to take my shoe off?” he asks Renee Gavigan, who is leading today’s Art Cart plaster sand casting activity at Warner Beach. Gavigan, an art education student at UW-Eau Claire and summer Art Cart teacher, confirms that Xander will need to remove his shoe in order to make a footprint in the sand. “But I can’t do my face,” he announces matter-of-factly.
Xander’s 2-year-old brother, Milo, toddles nearby around the beach. Someone asks Xander and Milo’s mom, Anjee Sorge, if Milo wants to participate in the activity. “Sure, I’ll shove his hand in a plaster mold for the fun of it,” Sorge says with a laugh. Sorge’s mom, Sandi Daniel, helps Milo make a handprint in the sand while Sorge watches as both boys’ eyes light up when the plaster gets poured into the holes they dug in the sand. Sorge says she had heard of the Art Cart but didn’t know it would be at Warner Beach that afternoon, just blocks from her home on Madison’s north side. “I went to the grocery store and drove past and saw the van and was like ‘Yes! I’m going home to get the kids!’” Sorge says.
Friends Charlie Granberg, 12, and Elise Bramlett, 13, also stumbled upon the sand casting activity. “We were just riding our bikes by,” says Virginia Vormann, Charlie’s mom. “But this is an unexpected treat.”
“The Art Cart is a bit of a well-kept secret,” says Erika Monroe-Kane, director of communications for the Madison Museum of Contemporary Art (MMoCA). “People think that it’s magical and that it just shows up.”
Art Cart and Art Cart EXTRA! are free outdoor art programs that travel to parks, playgrounds and beaches across Dane County in the summer. The Art Cart, which travels to Madison sites Monday through Friday, is a partnership between MMoCA and Madison School and Community Recreation (MSCR). Art Cart EXTRA!, sponsored by MMoCA, travels on Saturdays to communities beyond Madison, including DeForest, Stoughton and Cross Plains.
The Art Cart program started in the mid-1970s. Since then, says Sheri Castelnuovo, curator of education at MMoCA, “it’s really grown.”
“When it first started it wasn’t every day and only went to downtown Madison sites. But each year it’s evaluated and we continue to expand the program.” This summer’s program, which launched June 14, includes 50 sites and 89 sessions that will run through August 9.
Castelnuovo says the program is a product of 1960s ideals. “This is the program that came out of that ethos,” she says, “when a lot of museums were thinking that we need to bring the things that we do outside of our museum walls. That is really where Art Cart was born.”
Castelnuovo says a mission of the summer art programs is to focus on areas that don’t typically have art programming. “This program goes all over town and, as we know, some areas of Madison are more privileged than others as far as having out of school time spent in private arts lessons. It’s one way we can bring a broad scope of art access to the community of Madison and beyond Madison,” Castelnuovo says. In addition to the sand casting, other activities include printmaking, painting and collage; participants always go home with at least one project.
“There are a lot of different ways for people to engage with art and art making and the power of art in a fun, low pressure way, whether it’s being on the beach doing a casting or a self-guided exploration in MMoCA’s gallery,” Monroe-Kane says.
Monroe-Kane, thinking back to when her kids were young, offers another reason to bring children to the free Art Cart events. “As a parent, this is beyond the finger painting at the dining room table that I used to do,” Monroe-Kane says. “There is a lot more knowledge behind it and I don’t have to clean up the mess.” For a complete schedule for the Art Cart programs visit MMoCA’s website.
Number of years Art Cart has existed: 43
Number of children who visit Art Cart programs in the summer: 3,600
Gallons of paint used each summer: 20
Pounds of plaster used each summer: 500
Square miles covered by Art Cart EXTRA!: 910
A few upcoming events: July 5 at East Madison Community Center, 1 p.m.- 4 p.m.; July 6 at Tenney Beach, 1 p.m.- 4 p.m.; July 7 at Discovery Gardens in McFarland, 10 a.m.- 12 p.m.