What's with this font?

Kids and parents alike come to the workshops at the museum sponsored by Target. They're Friday afternoons during the summer and we work in the Carriage House classroom, looking out at the ocean, crafting artistic works that are fun and consuming. The first time I helped, we had 30 people every half hour in 4 rotations. We constructed a sketch book with accordion pages and a cover. It took folding, gluing and following directions. It was a dynamic 2 hours with 99% success rate. There was one little boy telling me I was showing him incorrectly, and pushed me away, so I left him alone. His mother looked at his sketch book after he was done and said, "You did it wrong."
Today we had only 30 people for the whole two hours. It was relaxed and breezy as the wind from the ocean blew in at a gentle tempo bringing the salty scent of summer. We traced all kinds of shapes and portraits and modern abstracts with pencils, colored pencils and markers. No right way, no wrong way, just head down, hands on creativity. Genesis on a summer's day.
Two moms and I started chatting, one a teacher, the other a counselor. The counselor helped high schoolers find their interests and head off to college. The teacher was looking for full time work, but was settling for long term substituting duties with 3rd graders. It was all gab about kids, passions, letting the choices kids make for high school come from their inner vision not their parents. It was all about cool documentaries like Paper Clips, Word Play, and Spellbound.
We ended with the teacher getting information from the counselor about how one becomes an art therapist. It was a very satisfying day.

Docent Days

Today was touring day at the art museum, Long Beach Museum of Art. I have been a docent for a little less than a month. Training began in mid January, '09 and we graduated as a class on June 25. I have given about 4 tours to 5th graders in groups of 10 or so. We have 2 forty minute tours of the museum and the time goes by so quickly, I feel sad when I hear the chiming bell to tell us time's up.
This morning I started at our beautiful Claire Falkenstein fountain that sits on the patio of the restaurant named "Claire's." It was a perfect morning and my first group of kids were attentive, polite and extremely bright. They said the twists and turns and jagged edges of the sculpture made them feel happy, wet, comforted. We walked back into the museum and stopped at the first monumental book at the exhibit, Novel Constructions. One student told me that she thought it meant that we should all read books because of how much information you can find in them. Mind you, we're standing at a book that is layed out horizontally and is about 4 feet high and eight feet wide. There are no words, the pages are in black and white with mysterious figures painted on a canvas of ads from newspapers and magazines that have been affixed to burlap and barely peek through a white base. At that moment, I knew these students would listen to what I had to say, and I better be pretty sharp! They expressed sadness at the large 3 dimensional cell with the cell bars made of pages of Marie Antoinette's Diary. They knew the meaning of Metamorphosis.
One of the other docent's told me her group had read Metamorphosis in 4th grade!
It is a joy to show the student's the peace and beauty and inspiration of the museum, and to tell them that they can return and bring their families.
At a painting called "Left hand turn, late afternoon," a student said, "I think the arrow is telling you to make the turn that will be the best way to lead your life."
Whoa. This young lady had some serious upbringing!
I will return in a couple of days to teach a workshop. I think that group will be second graders. What surprises will they have in store for me?