Art Shanty Projects

The Jack Shack
Our house will be the one where kids want to hang out till after their toes turn blue.  The idea is aimed at attracting, involving, and entertaining the younger set of ice house fans (or to make fans out of those who are dragged along with their parents).  The plan is an extension of the Jack Pine Collective, which founded a community center in South Minneapolis designed to  “… foster self-expression, self-representation and activism by providing a family-friendly space for skill sharing, events, meetings and art.”  One of our goals at the Jack Pine is to create welcoming spaces centered on kids—in events and areas not particularly geared for them.   At last years Art Shanty shindig, we saw families making use of a great and unusual opportunity to spend some time together and we’d love to be a part of that this year.
Most of our activity ideas are as appealing to adults as to kids.  We will have a melamine wall with erasable markers, a picture book corner with daily storytimes, finger-puppet making with regular shows, and Lincoln Logs (who doesn’t love Lincoln Logs?)  There may also be nap mats, but the jury’s still out on whether that would repel some sleep-resistant kids.  We come up with new goings-on all the time; the above are just a few of the ones that have made the unanimous cut.