Eric Carle Museum opens new ‘On the Move’ exhibitDate: 3/31/2021 AMHERST – The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art has officially opened up a new exhibit in the west section of their facility.
The exhibit, titled “On the Move with Eric Carle,” plans to emphasize the artwork of 15 different Carle books, including images from “10 Little Rubber Ducks” and “The Lonely Firefly,” to linoleum prints from “The Boastful Fisherman,” as well as small collages from his earlier reader series from the 1980s.
According to Ellen Keiter, chief curator at the museum, the west gallery is always dedicated to the legendary author and illustrator. “We change our exhibitions in that gallery every five to six months,” she said. “We present two new Eric Carle exhibitions a year.”
Keiter develops these exhibitions with the museum’s Director of Education Courtney Waring. Due to their familiarity with Carle’s work, Keiter said that it is very easy to come up with different themes. “This particular exhibition really came up just through reading his books and coming across many illustrations of different modes of transportation,” she said.
Both Keiter and Waring thought of many different modes of transportation for the exhibit outside of the typical trains, cars and airplanes. “We were thinking about different ways that his characters go from one place to another,” said Keiter. “We decided to bring it down to more familiar modes of transportation.”
Throughout the exhibit, there are the typical taxis, cars, a plane, but then there are also some old-fashioned modes of transportation like a hot air balloon or a horse.
The museum often offers different types of activities in each of their three galleries, according to Keiter. Many times, these activities are drawing based, where people are responding to a prompt or a piece of artwork. Because of COVID-19, however, that type of activity has been challenging.
As a substitute, Keiter and the museum’s education team decided to use the floor of the gallery as the activity itself. “Moving your body through the space is the activity,” said Keiter.
Through vinyl application on the floor, the museum has railroad tracks, a roadway, and a waterway. “There’s various ways you can go,” she added. “It’s a more playful and creative way to experience the space, and hopefully do it in a very safe and socially distanced manner.”
Right now, the museum is operating at 50 percent capacity under the state’s guidelines, and Keiter asks the visitors to reserve their tickets online for the gallery before they arrive to the museum so a safe environment is maintained. Limited walk-ins can be accommodated, as well.
The central gallery is currently displaying a single book exhibition for “Inside-Outside Dinosaurs with Roxie Munroe.” This portion of the museum explores the creation of Munroe’s new book on dinosaurs with actual dinosaur tracks that were borrowed for display.
In the east gallery, the museum has a gallery titled “Picture the Dream: The Story of the Civil Rights Movement Through Children’s Books.” This particular exhibition features 41 artists and 80 different artworks.
“We very much believe in the power of picture books,” said Keiter. “Picture books are for people for all ages. There’s incredible stories to be found.”
The Eric Carle exhibit will be open to all ages of the public until Aug. 22. To reserve tickets, residents can visit https://www.carlemuseum.org/.
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