Staff Spotlight: Deb Kellogg, Senior Guest Service Associate
“Exhibit Spotlight: Maker Space” from “The Scoop: News from KidsPlay Children’s Museum,” Winter 2024/25.
“I have always been interested in art,” says Deb Kellogg, KidsPlay’s Maker Space Assistant, Volunteer Coordinator, and Youth Engagement Specialist. “My sixth-grade teacher is the one who really got me excited about it. He opened the door to so many possibilities for me.”
In that sixth grade art class, Deb recalls making macaroni art and squiggle drawings, but more important than that, she remembers time spent with friends and that all-important discovery: that her creativity and imagination had no limits.
Deb began at KidsPlay as a volunteer for the Messy Art program, where she spent two years bringing the same delight that she had discovered as a child to a new generation. When she joined the KidsPlay team, she was thrilled to use the skills that she had developed through her degree in graphic design, fine arts, and photography in the role.
“Kids will come in and not know what to do at first,” she says. “It’s fun to see the wheels start to turn as they come in and see the different materials and start to imagine what they can do.”
Not every child immediately dives into a project, though. Some, Deb says, want very badly to do their project “right” (or sometimes to have Deb do it for them, instead). Deb, in turn, encourages children and parents to use their imagination to experiment with different possibilities. Visitors display their final products around the Maker Space: castles and robots, trucks and trains, each one different. “Yours is going to look different because it’s yours,” Deb says. “Everyone has their own unique style. Everyone has their own unique vision.”