For five days, young artists will create multimedia art projects and explore local history through the museum’s summer special exhibit “100 Artifacts,” which showcases 100 of the 200,000 artifacts in the history center’s permanent collection.

“History is the inspiration and art is the product,” LCAP Director Carol Phillips said about the art camp program.

Students on Monday went into the special exhibit gallery at the museum to see the show.

“We talked about what an artifact is and how it can represent both a time gone by, and can also be something new,” museum educator Betsy Rutz said. “An artifact is anything people interact with or create. We want them to realize that the artifacts in our exhibit make up the portrait of the museum. They really represent our museum.”

Two embroidered cats are pictured on a section of the exhibition piece “Crazy Quilt,” sewn by Flavia Marie Barbeau Pendill. Day camp participant Lucas Dieter chose the artifact as the subject of his painting and cartoon booklet during the first day of the “Hands On! Art and History Day Camp” at the Marquette Regional History Center. (Journal photo by Corey Kelly)

During that time, students choose an artifact to make the subject of a watercolor painting and a cartoon booklet.

“It’s a way to connect them to what is going on in the exhibit,” Phillips said. “History is real, and history is fun and interesting, and it can be imaginative.”

Today, students will walk to the Creative House Art Gallery on Washington Street to look at Phillip’s paintings on display. Afterwards, Phillips will bring the group back to the history center classroom and guide them on the art behind constructing a portrait.

A historical re-enactor will visit the camp on Wednesday and share accounts about the pioneer cabin in the museum’s permanent exhibit space. After the presentation, students will have a chance to represent their own story by creating small dioramas — a model representing a scene with three-dimensional figures — with cigar boxes, clay and paint.

“The diorama that we make will be a portrait of their family, and they can include little artifacts in that portrait,” Rutz said.

Museum educator Betsy Rutz helps student Amelia Capuana, 9, start her cartoon booklet with student Payton Bullock, 11, quietly painting a pair of snowshoes nearby. (Journal photo by Corey Kelly)

Thursday, a museum curator will take the students in small groups to the collections room where they will look through other small examples of dioramas.

To end the week, students will collaborate on a project that involves printmaking and uses copies of historical photographs.

Rutz said that the finished work be a collage piece that celebrates the center’s centennial and will be displayed in the windows of the museum.