My Ontario

Top–bottom: Interacting with Henry Moore
sculpture at Art Gallery of Ontario; The
Great Hall, National Gallery of Canada.
tiny figures or to pose beside Keith Haring’s green man in
the outdoor sculpture garden. “I love seeing kids here,” adds
Kilgour-Walsh. “Kids don’t question, ‘Should I like it’ They just
think, ‘Wow, this is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!’” In their
newly designed (and totally free) Children’s Art Site room – a
little gallery just for kids – young Picassos draw to their heart’s
content, work with Plasticine, and examine objects relating to
exhibits – from Japanese woodcuts for an Asian arts celebration
to Leonardo’s wonderful flying machine (to be showcased at the
2009 Vista Italia show).
Spaces have changed too. Long gone are the hush-hush, dimly
lit buildings from my childhood, where we kids were dragged
to stand in front of endless visions of trees. Today’s renovated
art buildings glow with light and colour and space. Racing past
the famous spider sculpture and through the glass doors of
the National Gallery of Canada in Ottawa, we travel up a long
ramp into a brilliant cathedral of light. Here in the Great Hall,
just steps from masterpieces like Tom Thomson’s The Jack Pine,
we find kids of all ages making a giant floor puzzle and turning
feathers, cotton puffs and patterned paper into art. Luke, a
three-year-old, is creating a dazzling coloured sun on paper
with bingo dabbers – “Look,” he says proudly. After art-making,
it’s time to grab the gallery’s free family guide, Artissimo:
Animals at the Gallery, to hunt for Chagall’s Russian goat from
his childhood or the 3-D Indian god Ganesha, carved in stone.
86
MY ONTARIO • ontariotravel.net
ontariotravel.net • MY ONTARIO 87