free art friday

On my daughter’s 14th birthday we went on a scavenger hunt for art!  A local art community was having a FREE Art Friday event that was going on all day! Art & Soul of Aiken placed real artwork from local artists all over downtown Aiken, SC as a way to reach out to the community.  I wanted to share this event with our readers to give their community the same idea! I would highly recommend doing this in the fall or early spring due to the heat we experienced. Thankfully each of my three children found a work of art to bring home.

My children were getting restless looking for the artwork before the clues were posted and were ready to go home . . . then the first clue popped up on the organization’s Facebook page.  We could see the flowers in the display windows from across the street and ran to get there before anyone else figured out the clue.

The clue posted on their Facebook page was, “Perfect hiding place for art!! Check it out.” My daughters saw the bag immediately when they looked in the store windows. They went inside to claim their bag then asked the sales lady if they had anymore art in the store and the attendant said, “No this is the last one”.

While the girls went inside the store to look my son and I went in the store next door to them. I asked the sales lady if they were participating in the scavenger hunt and she said, “yes we have two pieces”.  My son was ecstatic he found the first one.

It was so wonderful to see my child’s face light up after an hour of searching in the hot sun. He was so happy that he had found a piece of art all by himself.  My son is about to turn six in a couple of weeks.

My son and I looked and looked for the second piece of art. Then after several trips around the store I decided to look up above my head to find the second piece of art. I was right they had placed the bag on top of a wardrobe and we would have never found it had I not started looking up.

My younger daughter came into the store to see if we had found anything and I gave her the bag I found. When we met back up with my eldest daughter we showed each other our finds.  My middle child found the sea turtle, my eldest found the photograph and my son found the print.

This really was a fun event!  Talk to your artist community and share this post with them to give them the idea of Free Art Friday for your children to find FREE art!