Tag Archives: first slow art day

Mason City, IL, Hosts City-Wide Slow Art Day

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For their first city-wide Slow Art Day, the town of Mason City, Illinois lined up three venues to host artwork events for Slow Art Day: the public library, Reimagine Mason City Foundation, and the Arlee Theater. 

All three are local nonprofits who are actively involved in youth services and the arts. Even though Mason City is not large enough to need a stop light (with a population of 2500), they still make sure to celebrate local artists. This year’s featured works included pieces from local artists who have passed on, as well as works from four other Central Illinois artists with various ties to Mason City. Most of the entries were paintings, with one sculpture.

This year’s local artworks were: 

  • Unknown titled piece by Andrea Maxson
  • “Colorful Flowers” by the late Helen Kim
  • Two untitled pieces by Anastasia Neumann
  • “Protection” and “Old Warrior” by Rick Kehl
  • Unknown titled piece by the late Mary Price
  • Unknown titled piece by the late Mary K. Mangold
  • “Arcturian Landscape Study in Aluminum” by Paige Price 
Untitled work by Anastasia Neumann
Untitled work by Anastasia Neumann
Untitled work by Andrea Maxson
“Colorful Flowers” by Helen Kim
Untitled work by Mary K. Mangold
Untitled work by Mary Price
“Arcturian Landscape Study in Aluminum” by Paige Price
“Old Warrior” by Rick Kehl
“Protection” by Rick Kehl

On Slow Art Day, the artworks were divided across the three selected locations, and tips for looking at art slowly were provided at each venue.

  • The public library showed their pieces in a special exhibit.
  • The Reimagine Mason City Foundation hosted a pop-up coffee shop where their works were displayed. 
  • And lastly, the Arlee Theater projected digital versions of all of the works onto the big screen prior to the evening’s show (we have seen several theaters participate over the years, and love this type of venue for slow looking!).

At Slow Art Day HQ, we love to see citywide events – and especially appreciate smaller towns who come together to celebrate the day. We also hope to see more movie theaters join the Slow Art Day movement.

We look forward to seeing what Mason City comes up with for Slow Art Day in 2025.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl


P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park or movie theater here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/

Mindful Slow Looking at The Foster Museum

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For their first Slow Art Day, The Foster Museum in Palo Alto, California, invited participants to engage with works by Tony Foster, a plein air watercolor artist who creates series of paintings he calls “Journeys.” Per their website, “Foster’s unique art form is a series of paintings with accompanying notes and symbolic objects or “souvenirs” made with the intention to reveal wild places or explore a specific idea or theme.”

The free Slow Art Day event was advertised in the museum lobby and in their newsletter for a few months before the event on Saturday, April 13. The event started with an introduction by Anne Baxter, co-Director of The Foster Museum, and was followed by an hour of mindful slow looking at 5 of Tony’s artworks. The event ended with a closing discussion and light refreshments.

Slow Art Day participants engaging with artworks by Tony Foster (Ph: Anne Baxter).

Anne told us that she learned about Slow Art Day through Alan Petersen, Fine Art Curator at the Museum of Northern Arizona, a longtime Slow Art Day museum. Last year when Alan was in California teaching a drawing workshop and researching the whereabouts of Gunnar Widforss’ paintings in the area, Anne asked him for programming ideas that seem like a great fit with The Foster Museum. Alan immediately suggested Slow Art Day. Love that. Word-of-mouth is how we have built this movement.

And we are happy to welcome The Foster Museum to Slow Art Day and look forward to what they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.

– Jessica Jane, Johanna, Ashley and Phyl

P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/

P.S.S. You can follow The Foster Museum on Instagram, FB and X.


McMichael Canadian Art Collection Hosts First Slow Art Day

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For their first Slow Art Day, the McMichael Canadian Art Collection in Kleinburg, Canada, organized a slow looking and sketching event.

Visitors were encouraged to walk around the museum and look slowly at their chosen works of art. Guided tours were canceled for Slow Art Day in order for participants to experience the art slowly and on their own terms – excellent!

McMichael Collection Slow Art Day image from their social media post, advertising the event.

Slow looking participants listening to the introduction in the Founder’s Lounge.

To introduce the concept of slow looking, visitors were also invited to a short explanation followed by a 15 minute self-guided sketching activity in front of an artwork of their choice. The sessions were held in the Founder’s Lounge at the top of the hour during three time-slots. All sketching materials were provided, and visitors were given stools to place in front of their chosen artwork.

Images of participants slow looking and sketching were shared to social media.

Participant sketching in front of their chosen artwork.

We love this simple, creative design and encourage other museums to consider copying some of what the McMichael Canadian Art Collection did for 2024.

And we look forward to what they come up with for April 2025!

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/

P.P.S. Stay up to date with other events at the McMichael Canadian Art Collection through their Instagram and Facebook.

The Red Awl Hosts First Slow Art Day

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For their first Slow Art Day, The Red Awl in Clarkdale, Arizona, featured four tiny ink-on-paper drawings by Karen McClanahan. The drawings were chosen because they align with the mission of The Red Awl to create, exhibit, and promote handcrafted, quirky, and often humorous artists’ books and fine art multiples.

The Red Awl is an artist-run project space located in a 100+ year old building in the small town of Clarkdale, Arizona. The building contains studios, a workshop, a copy room with a vintage Xerox machine, and a 242 square foot office lobby that serves as a project and exhibition space.

On Slow Art Day 2024, visitors were welcomed and asked to sign an antique ledger guestbook, then they were invited to read a short statement describing Slow Art Day along with an introduction to the drawings on view. Since this was the first time The Red Awl hosted Slow Art Day, they opted for a casual event instead of a formal program. The artist, Karen McClanahan, was on site to engage in discussions and answer questions throughout the day. An extra detail is that all visitors were asked to put away their cell phones and not take any photos or videos during their visit. This allowed them to stay present with the drawings and the artist.

Antique ledger.

 Visitor viewing closely.

Slow Art Day participants were encouraged to look at the tiny drawings – first with an unaided eye and then with a magnifying glass. This allowed them to see the details up close at a similar magnification as the artist had drawn them. The drawings by McClanahan are small – measuring at 1 in. by 1-5/8 in., or slightly larger than a postage stamp. The size of the works offer a unique way to look slowly, as the intimate scale of the artwork requires a close view, making slowing down imperative.

McClanahan meticulously drew the tiny abstract compositions using a Bic ballpoint pen, a Micron pen, a straight edge ruler, a steady hand, and high-powered reading glasses.

Magnifying glasses for literal close looking.

Ink vs. Ink (Original drawing)

Eddy (Original drawing)

After viewing the works, visitors moved on to view a portfolio with the additional original book “plates” and the finished book titled “Ink vs. Ink.” Seeing the larger context of the four works showed visitors how the artist achieved a conceptual book narrative using pure abstraction.

Informal discussions focused on the various allusions to landscape, the human body, architecture, nature, and fabric. There were many questions regarding the drawing technique itself and how the miniature drawings were created using a humble Bic ballpoint pen.

At Slow Art Day HQ, we love this alignment of the small drawings with the mission of the exhibition space (and the magnifying glasses are cool).

We look forward to whatever The Red Awl comes up with for their second Slow Art Day in 2025.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

P.S. Slow Art Day 2025 is coming up on April 5. If you have not done so, please register your museum, gallery, church, sculpture park here: https://www.slowartday.com/be-a-host/

Self-Guided Slow Art at the Cameron Art Museum

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For their first Slow Art Day, the Cameron Art Museum in Wilmington, North Carolina, organized a self-guided viewing activity. They provided visitors with a flyer (shown below) which had a framework for participating and suggested artworks ranging from paintings to quilted art.

Flyer of the event

This is a great flyer/set of instructions. Other museums should feel free to copy anything they’ve done here.

We are glad to welcome the Cameron Art Museum to the Slow Art Day movement and look forward to what they come up with for 2025.

– JJ, Johanna, Ashley, and Phyl

New Bedford Whaling Museum Hosts First Slow Art Day

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For their first Slow Art Day, the New Bedford Whaling Museum in New Bedford, Massachussetts, invited visitors to look slowly at their collection “Framing the Domestic Sea: Photographs by Jeffery C. Becton.” Becton’s layered visual images feature the maritime world, and highlight contemporary environmental concerns.

The museum took a simple self-guided approach to their Slow Art Day, which is a great way for any museum or gallery to participate.

They designed a simple and attractive flyer with slow looking prompts (featured below – feel free to copy) and also set up a QR code that took visitors to a discussion about the exhibit by the artist and his wife.

SLOW ART DAY FLYERDownload

We are glad to welcome the New Bedford Whaling Museum to the Slow Art Day movement and look forward to what they come up with for 2025.

-Johanna, Ashley, JJ, and Phyl

P.S. Stay up to date with events at the New Bedford Whaling Museum via their Instagram, Facebook, or TikTok page.

Cline House Gallery Hosts First Slow Art Day

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For their first Slow Art Day, Cline House Gallery in Cornwall, (Ontario) Canada, invited the public to look slowly at art by Giuseppe Di Leo, who was in attendance at the event.

Slow Art Day poster.

On arrival, participants were given a handout with slow looking prompts that first instructed them not to read anything about the artworks before looking at them. We at Slow Art Day HQ love this instruction – and have even seen hosts hide all artwork info – because it really encourages the viewer to slow down and build their own personal relationship with the art first.

Participant looking slowly at art by Giuseppe Di Leo during the Slow Art Day event.
Participants looking slowly at art by Giuseppe Di Leo during the Slow Art Day event.

Participants were instructed to find any work in the Gallery that they felt drawn to and look at it slowly, using the below prompts to guide them through their experience.

QUEST – TO SLOWLY LOOK AT ARTDownload

After the individual slow looking, gallery educator Sean George and the featured artist, Giuseppe Di Leo, led a discussion with participants about their slow looking experience. At Slow Art Day HQ, we love to see artists participating directly in the slow looking event, and believe it is just as rich of a discovery for them to see how their works are perceived by the viewers as it is for the slow lookers.

Artist Giuseppe Di Leo with one of his artworks.

Visual Arts Coordinator, Emily MacLeod, reported that the event was a success and the Gallery is already looking forward to hosting their second Slow Art Day in 2025. We are excited to see what they come up with next.

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

P.S. Stay up to date with events at Cline House Gallery through Instagram.

First Slow Art Day Held in Athens, Greece

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This year the B&E Goulandris Foundation in Athens became the first museum in the Greek capital to host a Slow Art Day event.

The Foundation’s Slow Art Day included more than 200 visitors who looked slowly at these four artworks from their permanent collection:

  • “Caparisoned horse”, a funerary figurine from China’s Tang Dynasty (8th century)
  • “The Red Fish” by A.R. Penck on the second floor
  • “Large Study in Cadmium Red” by George Rorris on the third floor
  • “London Cityscape Piccadilly Circus I” by Chryssa on the fourth floor
The Red Fish by A. R. Penck, 1982 – one of four artworks chosen for Slow Art Day.

Visitors were invited to take a leaflet with slow looking prompts for their session, and were encouraged to keep it for their next visit. Facilitators also encouraged all visitors to discuss their Slow Art Day experiences with friends as well as to share on social media, using the hashtag #SlowArtDay.

Separately, The Foundation also co-hosted two mindfulness sessions with art historian, educator and mindfulness instructor Lydia Petropoulou.

Those sessions focused on Friedensreich Hundertwasser’s work “Ninety-nine Heads”, with the first session being for both adults and children aged 7+, while the second one was for adults only.

99 Heads by Friedensreich Hundertwasser, 1952.

The mindfulness sessions, they said, aimed to help participants become active, conscious viewers, encouraging them to draw information from what they see and feel instead of what they already know.

The B&E Goulandris Foundation submitted over 100 photos from their event for this report, which capture the beauty of slow looking at a range of the museum’s collection (we have included a few of those photos below our signature line).

We can’t wait to see what the B&E Goulandris Foundation comes up with for Slow Art Day 2025!

-Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl

See a selection of photos below.

Boston Athenaeum Hosts First Slow Art Day

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For their first Slow Art Day, Boston Athenaeum in Massachusetts invited participants to join one of four 30-minute slow looking and discussion sessions. (Note: As well as being a museum and cultural center, the Athenaeum is also one of America’s oldest member supported libraries.)

Slow Art Day participants being led in discussion by a docent. Photo by Fritz Holznagel.

The slow looking sessions were led by volunteer docents as well as the children’s librarian. The docents selected the works of art for slow looking, including works by Bradley Phillips, Allan Rohan Crite, and Polly (Ethel) Thayer.

The Empire City, 1987. Bradley Phillips (American, 1929–1991).

Marble Players, 1938. Allan Rohan Crite (American, 1910–2007).

Self Portrait, 1943. Polly (Ethel) Thayer (1904–2006).
Donald Starr, 1935. Polly (Ethel) Thayer (1904–2006).

Visitors to the Athenaeum who didn’t participate in the scheduled slow looking sessions were offered a slow looking hand-out (attached below), and were invited to select a piece of art for their own slow looking. They also received a blank piece of paper, clipboard and pencil to help them sketch and/or list what they were noticing.

Slow-Art-Day-handoutDownload

We are so glad to welcome the Boston Athenaeum to the global slow looking movement and are eager to see what design they come up with for Slow Art Day 2025.

– Johanna, Ashley, Jessica Jane, and Phyl.

PS. You can find details of other events at the Boston Athenaeum via their Instagram or Facebook page.

First Official Slow Art Day in Bordeaux

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On April 13th, Simone Raskin, art consultant and trainer at the Gallery L’Art de Regarder, organized the first official Slow Art Day in Bordeaux, sponsored by the Mairie de Bordeaux (the Bordeaux Town Hall) and hosted at the Espace Saint Rémi.

The Espace Saint Rémi was a church before the French Revolution and has over the centuries transformed into what is now a cultural center for exhibitions. Since 1991, the space has hosted a yearly photography exhibition titled Itinéraires des Photographes Voyageurs, which was created and organized by Nathalie Lamire-Fabre and Vincent Bengold as part of the first Mois de la Photo de Bordeaux (month of photography in Bordeaux).

The slow looking focused on the following 6 works from the photography exhibition:

  • Patrick Cockpit, “Pasaran, une dystopie franquiste” 
  • Lise Dua, “Les loyautés & Une vie”
  • Charlotte Auricombe, “Cau Del Llop” 
  • Benoît Capponi, “Toutes les heures blessent”
  • Sladjana Stankovic, “La Douce“
  • Thierry Girard, “The Tenjin Omuta Line” 
Photo credit: Simone Raskin

The Slow Art Day event was not promoted separately, so Simone greeted the 250+ visitors with an explanation of slow looking, and invited participants to sit in chairs that were arranged in front of the works. She provided them with the following prompts to guide their experience:

  • What’s going on in this picture?
  • What is it that attracts you in this particular photography?
  • What is the mood of the photo?
  • What are the colors? What do they evoke to you?
  • What is the composition of this photo?
  • If you were to say one word about this photo, what would it be?
  • Does it remind you of a painting, a souvenir, a memory, a personal experience?

Below are some of the works in the event:

“Pasaran, une dystopie franquiste” by Patrick Cockpit

“Les loyautés & Une vie” by Lise Dua

“Cau Del Llop” by Charlotte Auricombe

“La Douce“by Sladjana Stankovic

“The Tenjin Omuta Line” by Thierry Girard

Simone reported that many of the participants thanked her for the event, and they were quite appreciative for the prompts that she provided. Several mentioned that they would try slow looking at future museum visits.

At Slow Art Day HQ we are so glad to hear that the event was so well-received and look forward to whatever Simone Raskin, Mairie de Bordeaux, or Espace Saint Rémi plan for Slow Art Day 2025!

– Jessica Jane, Johanna, Ashley, and Phyl