A Child’s Oceanic Garden

We created a place for children and families to together to create toys and with them in a sensory environment to play in.  It had the theme of a Child’s Oceanic Garden with manipulatives to create a sensory experience. With the transformation of the space firstly with visual images of my grandmother’s magnificent paintings hanging in the inner and outter quarters of our play space.  Irma created her paintings (numbered in the hundreds) during the 60 years she lived in the Shadyside with her husband Lou. Irma Freeman, had an extremely vivid imagination, which gave her enthusiasm to live, despite the poverty and economic strife she endured for a good portion of her life. She lived to see the many changes within the little enclave behind Ellsworth Avenue called Pierce Street, beginning (for her) with an influx of German immigrants, of whom she was one. Of her 500 hundred or so paintings, we will show only water landscapes, which will be hung, as a backdrop for the interactive exhibit.  There was sand for castle making and other constructions, a pool of water for sailing boats, and wading, a fuzzy jumpy to play and to roll in the soft glittery grass, pink octopi, slippery snakes. multi-colored animals, glossy amphibians and fish, bending flowers and shiny grass!

The space had four large paintings with water landscapes with two work tables where parents and children can made their own creations to play within this fantastical subterranean ocean scenario. Pierce Street is a gentrified area where there a still a number of neighborhood children from low-income families. It is clear that they already struggle with basic needs, while, ironically, at the same time their values, like most children, tend to be driven by the media culture, curtailing their goals into materialistic wants.  We would like to sway this attitude focused on superficial, unhealthy goals by fostering intrinsic gains.  We want to give kids a means to understand how to see beyond their situation by constructing their own dreams, their own toys, related to a healthier, self-sustainable world. In addition, families from all walks of life enjoyed a place that would occupy their children in a creative environment.  This interactive is an outreach program that exhibits Irma Freeman’s artwork as well as engages children and adults alike.