Varujan Boghosian at TMA: Art for all Ages

Above, Modern art, Miro and Matisse, Frank Stella sculpture, hands-on sculpture-making, and the Varujan Boghosian
 (American-born, 1926) exhibit at Toledo Museum of Art, with Philip and GranE.  Below, my very favorite artists! 

"Look, we can make our own sculpture," Philip shouted with glee, as he pulled his GranE and me into a Varujan Boghosian work space.  A large table was full of all things Boghosian finds and uses in his art.  So we went at it.  Philip and GranE built a doll and moosie sculpture and Nana Frana used sundry metal objects around a white church. They both looked like altars to art. 

After a splendid time building our sculptures, using our imaginations, we walked through several galleries (stopping a lot in all of them) to the Boghosian exhibit.  The exhibit featured a variety of collage and assemblage works,  combining symbolism, myth, dream objects, odds and ends of history and real-life experiences.   Great for kids of all ages, I thought.   Here we are, three generations, and all equally entranced!  We basically followed Philip around from one work of art to the other. "Oh look at this one! Look at that one! Oh, it's a swan and a snake. Here's a tin man!"

"I don't make anything," Boghosian once said.  "I find everything."  His art classes at Yale and Dartmouth, where he taught for many years, must have been lots of fun!

Elissa loved it. Another junk-yard devotee,  scavenger, beachcomber, collector!  Save everything you find. It can be used to create something new. "Mom, don't throw those magazines out!"  My beautiful gift of a new collage by Elissa, which she called "This is a story about coming home," proves that!

Philip might take after his GranE.  He likes to collect things, too.  Stones and pebbles, paper cutouts, action figures, little cars, stuffed animals, marbles and books, things found floating around, in the air, on the ground. The collector's gene, passed down through the generations!   The Boghosian exhibit was just the thing for both of my artists.  

What a great way to spend a Friday night, with a curious six-year old. 

"Nana Frana, I'm six and one-half!" 

"Oh yes, of course, and may you always have the wonder and awe and curiosity you have now!"