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You can touch that: New CAM learning center opens

Carol Motsinger
cmotsinger@enquirer.com
The learning center features interactive art experiences.

Officials at the Cincinnati Art Museum don't want young visitors to be bored by art.

So they turned art into a board game.

Interactive art experiences, like a color game played on a reproduction of a mural, are the cornerstone of the Eden Park institution's new Rosenthal Education Center (REC).

The center, part of a $3.6 million renovation project, will open Saturday with a dedication at 11:30 a.m. The first program, COLOR, will explore and explain the science behind color and color mixing, said Emily Holtrop, director of learning and interpretation.

The REC replaces an educational space called ArtWorld, which was open only during limited weekend hours. The new space will be free and open to the public every day the museum is open.

The new center is also part of a larger effort to "keep our doors wide open to everyone" in the community, Holtrop said.

That everyone includes curious children. And their nervous parents who might think the museum is an obstacle course of priceless objects for their little ones to destroy.

As the mother of a two-year-old "with a lot of energy," Jill Dunne often repeats "don't touch" when her young daughter visits the museum, she said. "Now we have a dedicated space where kids can do just that," said Dunne, marketing and communications director.

Starting Saturday, visitors can practice color mixing, fiddling with a light box. Or playing with a loom. Each are built on color concepts and are designed to both teach and entertain, Holtrop said. Project planning began about three years ago.

The hands-on, immersive activities are geared toward visitors age 6 to 12, but "big kids will have fun," she said. "Successful, for me, is that we have families that come in, feel engaged and work together," Holtrop added.

The 2,300-square-foot space will feature rotating interactive installations based on the museum's collection and special exhibitions, and will be staffed by an an art education specialist and volunteers.

A look inside the new Rosenthal Education Center, which opens Saturday at the Cincinnati Art Musem.

The learning at the center will go both ways, Holtrop said.

"We will learn from the space and how people interact with it ... we know we are going to have to make tweaks," she said.

Renovations in surrounding areas of the museum continue.

The new center is part of Make Room for Art initiative which moved staff offices to the Longworth Wing and relocated painting storage to an off-site facility. The REC is off to the left of the Great Hall.

The REC and surrounding gallery renovations is a $3.6 million project, Dunne said.

The gallery right outside the REC will open in April for "Up at Bat: Warhol and Baseball," and the rest of the galleries will open in the fall, she said.

The Cincinnati Art Museum is at 953 Eden Park Drive. It is open 11 a.m.-5 p.m. Tuesday-Sunday, and admission is free. For more, visit cincinnatiartmuseum.org.