Doing Art Together Honors Muriel Silberstein-Storfer
by Pola Rosen, Ed.D.
Muriel Silberstein-Storfer, the quintessential educator, founder and creative director of Doing Art Together has been teaching art to children and their parents for so many years at The Museum of Modern Art and The Metropolitan Museum of Art, that she is now teaching the offspring of her original students. What started as workshops and courses in museum settings has evolved into hands-on art classes in the public schools for 3960 students and 1000 adults in 24 schools, 5 agencies, 1 geriatric center, after school programs, Saturday programs and summer programs in just one academic year! Silberstein-Storfer was honored on March 31st at the 19th annual benefit of Doing Art Together, reaping the following accolades from such luminaries as Honorary Chair Sandra
Priest Rose: "Muriel Silberstein-Storfer runs an art program that reaches the children's muscles, their minds, their eyes, and their souls. And they're given a way to look at the world with great beauty."
Wendy Simons, her daughter, added, "It's very appropriate that my mother be honored tonight because she truly has taught people how to see and look at things. She's dramatically involved in making sure children feel free to see things the way they really see them."
Daughter-in-law Laura
Roosevelt fervently stated, "I used to be an arts funder in New York City and I funded lots of organizations that had similar aims to Muriel's. All of the heads of those organizations would say, when I mentioned who my mother-in-law was, "Oh, well, Muriel wrote the book on art education.' So I can't think of anybody more deserving of being honored than Muriel. She's incredible and also an amazing mother-in-law; I wish she was my mother. She is just a blessing."
Son-in-law Ken Simons summed it up saying,"It's a wonderful evening when a group of friends and supporters can gather to honor Muriel Silberstein-Storfer and Doing Art Together—two institutions that absolutely deserve the support and praise of the citizens of New York.#
For more info: electra@doingarttogether.org. Parent/Child and after school hands-on art workshops are now being offered at the JCC in Manhattan at 76th Street and Amsterdam Avenue in a new art studio in the Samuel Priest Rose building.
