Children + Families

There are many opportunities for your family to connect, grow, and learn together through the arts at JMKAC. From family-friendly art-making activities to exhibitions of student art to classes that nurture your child’s creativity, there’s a lot waiting for you at the Arts Center.  

Receive first notification of our programs and discounts on classes and events with a family membership.  

Planning a Visit to the Arts Center and Art Preserve as a Family

Tools to Use During Your Visit

Overview cards with family-friendly explanations of current Arts Center exhibitions and tips for exploring together can be found in the Social STUDIO just inside the entrance to the Arts Center. Links to those resources are also below.

Stop by the Social STUDIO to pick up a sketchbook and pencil to write and draw as you explore the galleries.

The Kid’s Writer—a guide for the Art Preserve created for kids and families—can be found at the entrance to the Art Preserve.

Helpful Information to Review Together Before or During Your Visit

• Explore JMKAC Together!

A Guide Suggested for Ages 4–10 to review with their families

• View and Discuss Contemporary Art Together

A Guide Suggested for Ages 7–12 to use on their own or with their families

What Will You See at the Arts Center and Art Preserve?

At the Arts Center, you will usually see work by contemporary artists. Contemporary art is work that has been created in the last few decades. Often, the art at the Arts Center has been created just for that space.

The Art Preserve is the home of the Arts Center’s collection of artist-built environments. An artist-built environment is a place that an artist completely transforms. Often the objects are large in scale, quantity, or both. Whenever possible, it is important to keep these sites where they were originally built because the place and the objects are important to each other. Many of the objects you will see at the Art Preserve are from sites that no longer exist for different reasons.

Want to visit an artist-built environment in Sheboygan? Plan a visit to the James Tellen Woodland Sculpture Garden.

Find out more about current and upcoming exhibitions.

Will My Family See Adult Content at the Arts Center or Art Preserve? 

The majority of art on view at the Arts Center and Art Preserve is family friendly. However, artists sometimes use imagery in their work that may not be comfortable for all visitors, regardless of age. There may also be themes in artwork your family is not comfortable discussing or viewing.

Feelings of discomfort can be a normal part of a museum visit. Sometimes visitors feel they need to look at everything on view at a museum during their visit. If you do see imagery that you would prefer your family not view, you are not obligated to look at it together.  

Oftentimes children do not recognize provocative imagery or themes that adults readily notice. If your child sees an artwork that you are uncomfortable with them viewing but does not say anything, we suggest moving on to look at a different work of art.

If your child sees artwork that you are not comfortable with them viewing and does point out the artwork or ask a question, these are some ways you could respond.

In response to themes that you are not comfortable discussing with your child

Artists use many different ideas to inspire their artwork. Let’s go find a different artwork that inspires our family.

In response to seeing an artwork that shows a nude human form

Art is a way humans express themselves, and one thing all humans have in common is our bodies. For thousands of years, artists have studied the human body to learn how to draw, paint, and sculpt. When we see an artwork with a naked body at a museum, it is different than seeing pictures of naked bodies in other places. Let’s go find another artwork to see other images artists use in their work.  

Neurodiverse Visitors

We strive for every visitor to feel welcome and comfortable at the Arts Center. Before you visit, email education@jmkac.org to request tailor-made materials such as social narratives and sensory materials that connect to the exhibitions, and to request any other accommodations that will help make your visit successful. Please make all requests two weeks in advance of your visit. Every effort will be made to accommodate. Touch objects to use in the galleries can be requested in the Social STUDIO at the start of your visit.