Activity best for children age 4 and up

Anna May Robertson Moses was born in 1860 and lived until she was 101 years of age. Anna’s family liked to call her “Grandma Moses.” She loved sewing and embroidery, but like many elderly people, she had stiff hands. So at the age of seventy-eight, she taught herself to paint, and had a certain way of painting that was very fresh, and at the same time very familiar. Grandma Moses painted her happy memories of the landscapes, seasons and people of the mountainous farm community she loved. She wanted us to see all of it, so sometimes you feel like you are looking at her landscapes from a helicopter. Other times, she peels back the side of buildings so you could see what the people are doing inside, like a dollhouse. She painted over 1,500 paintings. She was well-known in her lifetime and her work now hangs in museums throughout the world.

Today we are going to make a diorama inspired by Grandma Moses’s artwork! A diorama, or a shadow box, captures a scene in time. It has parts that are three dimensional and look as we see them in real life. It also has parts of the composition that look close or faraway. We call this perspective.