As part of Family Programs at MoMA, we invite artists and designers represented in MoMA’s collection to share their work and engage in conversation with family audiences. During the programs, artists show images of their work, share what inspires them, and give kids a sense of what it means to be an artist day in and day out. Afterwards, kids and adults have a chance to ask the artist questions. Artists are continually impressed by kids’ incisive questions and have expressed that they make them think about their work in new ways.

On Saturday, February 23, Susan Kaprov joined us for a family artist talk. She spoke about her diverse work—from paintings to drawings to public art—and then led families in a collaborative art-making project inspired by her work. Participants received one of 48 puzzle pieces created by Kaprov and were instructed to draw what comes to mind when they imagine “seeing the wind.”

After designing their pieces, everyone worked together to assemble the puzzle—a more difficult task then one might expect, since the images didn’t serve as clues as to which pieces belonged together. Luckily, participants weren’t daunted. Led by a self-proclaimed puzzle expert and a father with an engineering background, the group completed the puzzle. A collective cheer was heard when the final piece was put into place. As Kaprov herself said, even the surprises were wonderful.

The completed work was a stunning collaboration that was impressive because the idea of wind could be seen in a variety of ways. The opportunity to not just hear from an artist, but to engage in an art-making project of her design made this family artist talk especially memorable.

A special thanks to Susan Kaprov for all of her efforts. We’d also like to thank Montana Cans for generously donating the acrylic markers for this event.

Look out for family artist talks with Mark di Suvero and Cory Arcangel later this month.