WHAT DO HORSESHOE CRABS THINK OF ART EDUCATION?

The Art Barge was the fulfillment of the dream to establish an ideal environment for artists and teachers to work together. The Art Barge was an ocean going U.S. Navy Barge purchased, of all places, in Jersey City and towed over a hundred miles to Napeague Harbor on the North Shore of Long Island. The Art Barge was the dream of Victor D’Amico, the founding director of education at the Museum of Modern Art. From 1960 to 1973 the Art Barge was the Summer Art Center of the Museum of Modern Art.

At the invitation of the Victor D'Amico Institute of Art, since 2018, I've had the immense pleasure of gathering every summer with artists and teachers at the Art Barge to wonder What do horse shoe crabs think of art education?

It was an exploration of the life and art teachings of Mabel and Victor D’Amico. It was an invitation to delve into the essence of the art experience as spiritual involvement and to discover what creative education is through the key concepts that geared Mabel and Victor D’Amico’s practice: the intertwining of art and life, the development of the individual creative self, the invention of creative atmospheres and the fundamental belief that art is for all people to fulfill the purpose of fuller living.