PHILADELPHIA — Woodmere Art Museum invites kids ages 4 and up to experience family-friendly fall programs beginning in September. The museum, located in Philadelphia’s Chestnut Hill neighborhood, welcomes the return of the large-scale landscape maze to Woodmere’s front lawn, Sept. 14-Oct. 28. This year’s maze, Diagon Alley: Woodmere’s Wizarding Market, is a straw labyrinth of concentric squares made with 100-pound bales of straw, evoking the cobbled wizardry shopping mecca from the Harry Potter series; accompanying the straw maze are seven weekends of Magical Art-Making Activities for kids, culminating in the annual Harry Potter Weekend, Oct. 26-28. The fall season also includes two new children’s exhibitions featuring artwork by local students, and the brand-new Kid Cinema series every Friday in November. A full schedule of family-oriented, art-inspired programming follows below.
Woodmere Art Museum is located at 9201 Germantown Ave. Admission to special exhibitions is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and FREE for students, children and Museum members; exhibitions in the Founder’s Gallery and Helen Millard Children’s Gallery are FREE. (Beginning Sept. 8, Woodmere offers free admission on Sundays, including all special exhibitions, but excluding special events such as Classic Sundays music series.) Museum hours: Tuesday-Thursday, 10 a.m.–5 p.m.; Friday, 10 a.m.-8:45 p.m.; Saturday, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; and Sunday, 10 a.m.-5 p.m. For more information, visit woodmereartmuseum.org or call 215-247-0476.
Straw Maze: Diagon Alley: Woodmere’s Wizarding Market
“There were shops selling robes, shops selling telescopes and strange silver instruments Harry had never seen before, windows stacked with barrels of blat spleens and eels’ eyes, tottering piles of spell books, quills, and rolls of parchment, potion bottles, globes of the moon …”
The straw maze Diagon Alley: Woodmere’s Wizarding Market will kick off with a free Opening Celebration on Friday, September 14. From 6 to 8 p.m., visitors are invited to run the maze and enjoy flashlight tours, seek-and-find games, art-making, face painting, food and much more.
The theme for Diagon Alley comes from the Harry Potter series: According to the books, Diagon Alley is a cobbled wizarding alley located in London, England, behind a pub called the Leaky Cauldron. Inside the alley is an assortment of shops where wands, charms and all items on the Hogwarts supply list can be bought. Visitors to Woodmere’s Diagon Alley will find all a wizard needs to cast his or her spells. The installation is geared toward families and children ages 4-11.
Diagon Alley creator Peter E. Brown, who designed last year’s Owl’s Eye maze, incorporated large 100-pound bales of straw into four concentric squares, one inside the other. In the outer square, bales are stacked to create post and lintel portals for access to magic markets. Beyond the portals is another square called the “commitment wall” — a solid barrier of straw bales that challenges the visitor to figure out how to gain access to the interior square, where the big red ball is housed. Seek-and-find activities guide visitors through the maze.
Brown lives in Fort Washington and is a project designer and project manager at the architectural firm Lenhardt Rodgers. He has worked on numerous design projects, including: The Shipley School in Bryn Mawr, The Caring Center at 31st and Spring Garden streets, and Eastern College in St. Davids, PA.
Dates: Sept. 14-Oct. 28 (Fridays, 6-8 p.m.; Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m.; Sundays, 10 a.m.-5 p.m.)
Opening Celebration: Friday, Sept. 14, 6-8 p.m., FREE
Admission: $8 per child age 4 and up (members, $6) or $20 for families of three or more (members, $18)
Magical Art-Making Activities and Harry Potter Weekend
Every Friday and Saturday throughout the duration of the straw maze, Woodmere invites families to participate in Magical Art-Making Activities that correspond with Diagon Alley. These activities, all free and open to the public, culminate in the annual Harry Potter Weekend, Oct. 26-28, featuring a Tri-Wizard Tournament, Magic Wands and Treats from the Trolley.
Dates: Sept. 14-Oct. 28 (Fridays, 6-7 p.m.; Saturdays, 2-4 p.m.; FREE)
September 14-15: Wizard Hats
September 21-22: Magic Wands
Sept. 28-29: Cloaks of Invisibility
Oct. 5-6: Wizard Hats
Oct. 12-13: Hogwarts Castle
Oct. 19-20: Magic Books
Oct. 26-28: Harry Potter Weekend
Kid Cinema
Another free weekend activity for kids, Kid Cinema coincides with Woodmere’s popular Friday Night Jazz series for the month of November. While their parents listen to great music and tour Woodmere’s special exhibitions, children can watch movies and eat popcorn.
Dates: Fridays in November (6-8 p.m., FREE)
November 2: Coraline
November 9: Ponyo
November 16: WALL-E
November 30: Despicable Me
Children’s Exhibitions
Creations from Young Artists: William Penn Charter Lower School
September 9–October 21, Helen Millard Children’s Gallery
Reception: Sunday, September 16, 2–4 p.m.
These student works demonstrate the rewards of learning to draw from both observation and one’s imagination. The artwork was created using a variety of techniques and mediums, including printmaking, wood sculpture, clay sculpture, painting and drawing.
Kids Care 19: Fairy Tales and Fables
November 4–December 16, 2012, Helen Millard Children’s Gallery
Reception: Saturday, December 15, 2–4 p.m.
Beautiful artworks made by hundreds of children from the Philadelphia region will be on view in this collaborative project of Woodmere Art Museum, WXPN’s Kids Corner and St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children. All works will be wrapped and delivered to sick children as holiday gifts.
