SHORT STUFF: ART EXHIBIT MEANT FOR CHILDREN TO OPEN AT UNIVERSITY MUSEUM

Most art galleries and museums aren't child-friendly. The paintings are hung much too high for kids to see them well, and those whispering adults are serious about the "Do Not Touch" signs.

"My own children used to be bored at the museums," says Pat Reagan-Woodard, director of the Southeast Missouri State University Museum and Gallery.

"Short Stuff," an exhibition opening Tuesday at the museum, is designed especially for children and largely curated by Sophie and Hanna Gathman, who are 9 and 5 years old, respectively.

The paintings will be hung at a child's eye-level, and the three-dimensional works will be touchable. The latter have been provided by artists including Reagan-Woodard herself who don't mind fingerprints on their work.

When it came to picking the artwork, she decided not to do it herself. "Children aren't asked what they think (at museums)," she said. "They usually are told what it's about rather than making their own interpretations."

"...That's why I thought we ought to let the children select."

The director picked Hanna and Sophie for the job simply because they were in the museum one day and seemed enthusiastic about what they were seeing.

The daughters of university biology professor Allen Gathman and part-time foreign language instructor Robin Hankinson, Sophie and Hanna spent an hour Wednesday afternoon choosing 20 artworks from the museum collection.

Down in the museum storage room, Reagan-Woodard already had pulled out an array of paintings for them to choose from, based mostly on whether the works were covered with glass.

She also offered a few just because she thought the children would like them, but their selections seemed to favor no particular styles or themes.

Hanna's first choice was a representation of an angel. Sophie picked a cubist painting, but didn't know why.

"With art it's sometimes hard to know what you like about it. It's mysterious," Reagan-Woodard assured her.

She called their attention to a finely detailed painting of a cockroach on a wooden floor. No takers.

Hanna was attracted to a huge whirl of vibrant colors called "The Diver." Reagan-Woodard said some people think it looks like a rooster in a swimming pool. "It looks like a boat breaking," Hanna said.

Other choices were a photograph of a clay Eskimo doll and a painting of a young man sitting backward on a motorcycle in a Zen posture. The latter reminded them of the cartoon character Dudley Doright.

Sophie picked a drawing of a rugged-looking frontiersman, and Hanna decided the cockroach was likable after all.

Sophie chose a reproduction of a Georgia O'Keeffe poppy and was congratulated on her taste. But the children in them came through when both chose an abstract crayon drawing.

Between them, the Gathman sisters also picked a drawing of guinea hens, an Indian maiden and a Victorian house.

Despite the cockroach selection, Reagan-Woodard later suggested that including a boy in the process next time might be a good idea.

Among the three-dimensional works Reagan-Woodard is contributing are a clay head, a wood carving she did in school and a cast bronze piece she calls a "Star Wars turtle."

"I don't mind if they touch," she said of little and big museum-goers alike.

Such tactile experiences of art are hard to come by but rewarding, Reagan-Woodard said. "I've been to a couple of exhibits for the blind and I've loved them."

All in all, Franklin School first-grader Hanna, and Sophie, who will begin the fourth grade in the fall, seemed a bit nonplused by their curatorial responsibilities if not by Reagan-Woodard's reward of ice cream money.

Both Sophie and Hanna are enrolled in the summer art workshops being offered to children by the Southeast Missouri Council on the Arts. The workshops' classes will go to the museum to draw, and Reagan-Woodard said she hopes the exhibition will inspire the students and others.

"We're hoping all children will come in with their parents," Reagan-Woodard said. "They're for all the community."

"...Our audience is really varied this is their community and we should serve everybody," she said.

The museum is in Memorial Hall off Circle Drive. Its hours are 9 a.m.-4 p.m. Mondays through Fridays.