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Ackland's Family Day fosters creativity

Children aged three to 12 created “extraordinary” art projects out of “ordinary” office supplies at the Ackland Art Museum’s Family Day on Sunday.

The museum hosts Family Day on the fourth Sunday of every month except December, each with a different theme — with Sunday’s program titled “Ordinary to Extraordinary.”

Jenny Marvel, the Ackland Museum’s manager of school and community programs, said the Family Day program inspires creativity.

“Family Day is a time when families, whether they are with multiple kids or just one, have an opportunity to look at works of art in new and different ways,” she said.

“It is a nice way to look at works of art, enjoy something that is a free event and allow for creativity to happen. It gives us a chance to connect back to the works in our exhibition.”

The event included story time, a creation station and three scavenger hunts, which sent kids on a search to find patterns throughout the artwork in the museum.

Following the “Ordinary to Extraordinary” theme, the story time books focused on inventions and innovations, showing children how mundane supplies could be transformed into exceptional objects through creativity.

“They get a chance to have hands-on experiences. Whether it is art-related or not, it is about creativity,” Marvel said.

Sisters Maisy, 3, and Gigi Oliver-Smith, 7, made houses out of the ordinary supplies. Gigi worked on making a creature to live inside her house, while Maisy used rubber bands and coin wrappers to build hers.

“I’m making a lot of stuff for my house,” Maisy said. “I like all the colors of the rainbow.”

She used multicolored pipe cleaners, paper cups and binder clips to build the foundation.

Marvel said creativity is an important topic for everybody.

“Creativity is at the foremost of everyone’s mind — and to have fun and to be open to new things,” Marvel said.

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