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March 19, 2024

Where Every Family Matters

Martin ArtQuest Reopens at The Frist

The Frist Art Museum's Martin ArtQuest (MAQ) Gallery has reopened as of November 8!

For now, the hours for MAQ are Sundays, Mondays, and Tuesdays, from 1:00 to 5:00 p.m.

The mission of the Martin ArtQuest Gallery is to create a fun and engaging learning environment where visitors of all backgrounds, ages, and abilities experience hands-on activities that promote connections, creativity, and critical thinking.

Admission to MAQ is free to members and to guests ages 18 and younger, but timed tickets are required for all visitors. Your reservation will give you an hour of access to MAQ before your scheduled entry into the exhibition galleries. 

Martin ArtQuest (MAQ) has been Nashville’s premier destination for hands-on art experiences since opening in 2001. Visitors of all ages, but especially children, have participated in activities that create delight, wonder, and inspiration.

MAQ’s opportunities to explore a range of art-making strategies—drawing, animation, printmaking, and painting—are accessible to all. MAQ helps participants find their unique talents and voices, celebrate their creative energy, and have fun! MAQ makes each individual’s passion possible and serves as a place of inspiration and immersion.

Art-making stations

• Draw, paint, and make prints.
• Explore the moving image using a large zoetrope, a shadow theater, and stop-motion animation.
• Create large-scale designs using the full spectrum of colors on a sixteen-foot interactive Everbright wall composed of color-changing dials.
• Contribute to a collaborative textile-weaving installation using a large six-sided art deco grid.
• Transform yourself into colors and shapes on a wall mural with a full-body-animated digital painting experience.
• Manipulate frequencies to create patterns with sand on metal plates at the sound pattern station, based on the study of acoustics.
• Engage with Frist Art Museum exhibitions, artists, and ideas.

Timed tickets are required, so please reserve tickets for you and your family before your visit. Reservations can be made two to three weeks in advance. Your ticket will give you an hour of access to MAQ before your admission into the exhibition galleries.

MAQ stations will be cleaned regularly, and supplies will be changed each hour. The procedures have been reviewed and approved by the Metro Health Department.

New policies and procedures:

  • A ticket is now required to enter MAQ.
  • MAQ capacity is limited to 25 people per hour.
  • All guests must sanitize their hands upon entry.
  • Protective face coverings will be required for all who are able to wear them safely (ages two and older). 
  • Some MAQ activities and stations may be modified or closed.

To purchase a timed ticket that includes a visit to Martin ArtQuest, click here.

About the Author

Michael Aldrich

Michael Aldrich is Nashville Parent's Managing Editor and a Middle Tennessee arts writer. He and his wife, Alison, are the proud parents of 4-year-old Ezra and baby Norah.