For Families

PMG welcomes visitors of all ages to explore our mosaiced Garden! In addition to our monthly Family Jam program, we are pleased to offer a new Activity Table in our Back Gallery, which features hands-on activities related to PMG for kids throughout the week.

Family Jams 

Join us every second Sunday for a variety of PMG themed, hands-on workshops and kid-friendly tours. Family Jam workshops begin at noon and end at 4:00 PM. Kid-friendly tours are about a half hour and begin at 2:00 PM. Past Family Jams have included book arts projects, poetry workshops, paper mosaics, and tile pin-making. All Family Jams workshops and activities are FREE with admission. Tours are $3 per person plus admission. Family memberships are available for free admission and ongoing discounts.

Upcoming Family Jam Dates

February Family Jam: Pop-Up Portraits
Sunday, February 12, Noon to 4:00 PM



PMG creator Isaiah Zagar frequently paints portraits of his family members, the community, and himself onto the many tiles in his mosaic murals. Sometimes Zagar depicts these people with multiple arms, heads, or even the ability to fly!

Drop by PMG's Back Gallery to make your own 3-dimensional Pop-Up Portrait featuring a realistic or imaginative portrait from noon - 4:00 PM, and learn more about Zagar's portraits in our kid-friendly tour at 2:00 PM. All activities are free with admission.

January Family Jam: Popotillo Straw Painting
Sunday, January 8, Noon to 4:00 PM



Popotillo is the traditional Mexican art of creating intricate images out of dyed straw pieces. Zagar has been commissioning Luz Maria Salinas from Mexico City over the last fifteen years to make popotillo straw paintings based off of his drawings. Zagar estimated that she has made over 300 popotillo paintings for him throughout the years!

We celebrated this amazing art and created our own popotillo picture frames and our free kid-friendly tour highlighted the other traditional folk art embedded in the walls of PMG.

December Family Jam: Pinata Party!
Sunday, December 11, Noon - 4:00 PM



In honor of the many traditional Mexican artworks embedded in the walls of PMG, we will be making pinatas. In Mexico, the pinata is a traditional craft made for the holidays, often brightly colored and with seven points to symbolize the seven deadly sins. With a blindfold symbolizing faith and a stick symbolizing virtue, everyone smashes the pinata and is rewarded with heaven on earth - or in this case, candy! Join us as we make our own candy-filled creations and learn more about the traditional Mexican art in the garden. All Family Jams workshops and activities are FREE with admission and take place between noon and 4:00 PM.

November Family Jam: Blob Ornaments
Sunday, November 13, Noon - 4:00 PM
We prepped for the holidays by making blob ornaments- a twist on Isaiah's blobs that he creates as a starting point for his mosaic murals. We mixed colorful grout and decorated the blobs with tiles, mirror pieces, and found objects.

 
Teachers making blob ornaments at our annual Back to School Ball

October Family Jam: Day of the Dead
Sunday, October 9, Noon - 4:00 PM
For October's Family Jam we decorated our ofrenda- a traditional altar set up for the Day of the Dead to remember and honor loved ones who have passed. The whole family created colorful papel picados (paper flags) and made Day of the Dead paper puppet figurines. Come by PMG to add to our ofrenda or read the touching stories of others throughout the month.







September Family Jam: Memory Tiles
Sunday, September 11, Noon - 4:00 PM
Zagar has created many references to the 9/11 attacks in his ceramic tiles that are embedded throughout the Garden. Since Family Jams falls on the 10th anniversary of September 11, we will be making our own memory tiles, based on the theme of honoring people or moments that have transpired.



August Family Jam: Reverse Painted Magnets
Sunday, August 14, Noon - 4:00 PM
Isaiah uses reverse painting techniques on glass to add vibrant colors and textures to his mosaic murals. This Family Jam, visitors made their own reverse painted magnets to add a little magic to their refrigerators!

  

July Family Jam: Fragment Finders

Sunday, July 10, Noon - 4PM

Fragment Finders was a hands-on book arts project that sent visitors of all ages on an epic quest to find the tiles, folk art, and history that is embedded in the labyrinthine walls of PMG. Successful "Fragment Finders" received a prize when they completed the scavenger hunt!

June Family Jam: Gaudi Games
Sunday, June 12, 2011, Noon to 4:00 PM
We celebrated the life and death of Antoni Gaudi (b.June 1852 - d. June 1926), the architect of the famous Sagrada Familia. Gaudi was inspired by nature to create organic forms made in a variety of Arts and Crafts media including wrought iron, mosaic and stained glass. Similarly, Isaiah Zagar makes his own colorful faux stained glass and grouted windows using a technique by Ricky Boscarino of Luna Parc. In June's Family Jam, we created nature-inspired faux stained glass windows out of colored acetate, in the style of Gaudi and Zagar.







May Family Jam: Mommy Masks

This May we made Julia Zagar-inspired "Mommy Masks" in celebration of Mother's Day!  Julia, founding artist Isaiah Zagar's wife of 48 years, was the inspiration for thousands of beautiful portraits throughout Philadelphia's Magic Gardens.  In this May's Family Jam, the whole family decorated and customized their own paper masks from  NOON- 4:00 PM and learned more about Julia and the Zagar family on our kid-friendly tours at 2:00 PM.





FREE Family Activity with PAFA at PMG
Wednesday, April 27, 3:30PM - 5:00PM

PMG and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Artʼs Family Art Academy invite you to a FREE Art-Making Workshop for Families. This family printmaking project is inspired by images from Of Heaven and Earth, PMG's current exhibition by internationally-recognized artist Ilana Shafir.

Create your own print mosaic inspired by Shafir's own carefully constructed artworks, which feature beautiful landscapes and other natural phenomena. Each family member can create symbols of trees, flowers, plants, birds, butterflies and other imagery inspired by their own personal experiences with nature. Participants then make "carvings” into foam to create a communal wall hanging and even a print to take home!  To attend the workshop and secure FREE Admission, mention "PAFA WORKSHOP" at the front desk.

April Family Jam Calligrams

April 10, 2011
12:00 - 4:00 PM

Family Jams presents: Calligrammes

Sunday, April 10, 12:00 NOON - 4:00PM In collaboration with the Philadelphia International Festival of the Arts (PIFA), we are looking back 100 years to gain inspiration from early 20^th century Parisian artists.

We played with words from the Magic Gardens at April’s Family Jam and made our own calligrammes (concrete poems) inspired by poet Guillaume Apollinaire, and enjoyed music by Claude Debussey, a composer of the time period.

Past Family Jams and Workshops:

March Pin Party

Sunday, March 13
Our second annual Pin Party was packed! Over 70 people made tile pins from the fallen shards of this brutal winter season. Join us again next March to take home your own piece of the gardens and enjoy a family-friendly tour.


Hands-on Family Workshop with Philadelphia Artist, Leroy Johnson

January Family Jam: Potato Prints!

PMG creator Isaiah Zagar has made his own stamps for over thirty years to press into tiles for his mosaic creations. For January's Family Jam we made our own potato stamps and pressed them into self-hardening clay. Participants took home their own custom tile and potato stamp at this special FREE hands-on workshop!