Go van Gogh | Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

Posts Tagged 'Go van Gogh'

Cruisin' in the Go van Gogh Van

Published July 12, 2011 Art & Teaching , People Closed
Tags: Art, Dallas Museum of Art, Go van Gogh, program, volunteers, works of art

You may have noticed the colorful Go van Gogh® van driving around town and wondered to yourself, “Is that van as fun to ride in as it looks?” The answer is “Yes!” Catching a ride in our van is easy: just sign up to be a Go van Gogh volunteer. Volunteers are trained by Museum staff to lead interactive conversations and art activities based on works of art in the DMA’s collections and special exhibitions. Taking these programs into classrooms throughout Dallas is a fun and rewarding experience for everyone involved, including the students, teachers, and volunteers.

A volunteer teaches fourth graders in a Dallas ISD classroom.

But you don’t have to take it from us that volunteering with Go van Gogh is a wonderful experience. Kari Laehr, who just completed her first year as a volunteer, recently shared this with us:

“Working with the Dallas Museum of Art’s Go van Gogh Outreach Program has been a great pleasure. Every program that I have taught has been not only exciting for the students, but for me as well. There is something extremely special about sharing my passion for art with youngsters, and I consider it a great honor to represent the museum in this way. I was very nervous during my first teaching session; however, having that one “light bulb” moment with a student during the art-making process makes everything worthwhile in the end. In fact, I have heard numerous times in my class, “This is the best day ever! When are you coming back?” I feel that what I am doing with the Go van Gogh Program is making an impact in Dallas classrooms and would highly recommend this experience to others.”

Volunteers discuss a work of art during training.

Afterward, they perform a short skit inspired by the work of art.

Do volunteers need to have teaching experience? No. Do they need to be art history experts? Not at all. The two primary requirements for our Go van Gogh volunteers are (1) an interest in sharing works of art with students in grades 1-6, and (2) a commitment to attend volunteer training at the Museum and present programs in Dallas schools during weekday mornings.

If you are interested in volunteering, please complete and return the volunteer application by Friday, August 5, 2011. Help us spread the word to any friends who may be interested as well. You can also contact me with questions about the programs at 214.922.1230 or MNelson@DallasMuseumofArt.org.

I look forward to hearing from you!

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

See you at the library!

Published July 1, 2011 Art & Teaching , Friday Photos , People Closed
Tags: Art of the American Indians, Dallas Public library, Go van Gogh, Preston Royal Library

Every summer, we bring Go van Gogh programs to Dallas Public Libraries. These one-hour programs are free and open to all ages. Below are pictures from our visit to Preston Royal Library with the Art of the American Indians program, inspired by the DMA’s special exhibition. Check our schedule to see when we’re visiting a library near you!

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Reflections on the 2010-2011 School Year

Published May 31, 2011 Museum Insight Closed
Tags: docent, Go van Gogh, Programs, tours

It’s hard to believe that the 2010-2011 school year is over. This has been a year of transition and change for our department, but we are proud to say that the quality of our programs has remained high. We thought we would take a moment to share with you the highlights of the past year. And remember: we’ll begin taking reservations for the 2011-2012 school year August 1. Have a great summer!

Museum Visits

Docent Tom Brown discusses Tlaloc with a group of 5th graders

We offered docent-guided tours of four special exhibitions this year: African Masks, Mexico 200, The Mourners, and Art of the American Indians: The Thaw Collection. Over 2,700 students received docent-guided tours of these exhibitions.
During the month of May alone, over 7,400 students visited the DMA.
For the 2011 school year, we’ll be offering special tours of Mark Bradford, an exhibition that shines a spotlight on the L.A.-based artist. I can’t wait to see this exhibition in person and to share it with our visitors.

Shannon Karol
Manager of Docent Programs and Gallery Teaching

Go van Gogh Outreach

First grade artists at Rosemont Primary

With the help of our dedicated volunteers, Go van Gogh visited 380 1^st-6^th grade classrooms in Dallas this year, seeing over 8,000 students. We presented a total of 233 programs to over 5,300 students in schools outside of Dallas.
One of my biggest highlights of the school year was visiting campuses and classrooms multiple times. Many of the students who received Go van Gogh programs in Dallas experienced several of our programs this year. Thank you, teachers, for bringing us into your classrooms and inviting us back!
I am most looking forward to spending this summer working with Melissa to recruit new Go van Gogh volunteers for next school year.

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

Community Connection: Combining Two Passions

Published April 28, 2011 Art & Teaching , People 1 Comment
Tags: Art, Community Connection, Dallas Museum of Art, Go van Gogh, Meadows Museum, program, Resolana, workshop

One of the great things about working with volunteers is the opportunity to meet people with a wide range of interests, experiences, and passions. Last fall, I interviewed Deborah Harvey, one of our Go van Gogh volunteers. I am pleased to introduce Jennifer McNabb, another Go van Gogh volunteer, who has managed to combine two of her passions through our outreach program.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m British, and I’ve been in the U.S. for twenty years, in Dallas for nineteen years. I’m a longtime visitor to the DMA. When my work situation opened up seven years ago, I was looking for a way to volunteer in the arts. I have a background in community arts from the 1980’s in England, when I helped set up and run a group studio for artists called Red Herring Studios. We took over derelict buildings that were to be demolished, converted the buildings to studio spaces, and had an exhibition space too. Red Herring put visual arts on the map in Brighton and has given birth to other fabulous organizations like Fabrica.

: Jennifer with her father and sister at Chesworth Studios in West Sussex, England.

What do you like most about Dallas?

I think what I like most about Dallas is the very vivid cultural life here. We have great museums (the Nasher Sculpture Center, the DMA, The Crow Collection of Asian Art), and I love the way the Arts District has been developing with the AT&T Performing Arts Center and the expansion of Booker T. Washington High School. I don’t come from a place where you have zoning; in London, these places are all in different parts. Also, I love the fact that Ft. Worth is just a few miles away with another bunch of fabulous museums. Although Dallas is a town that tends to be on the map business-wise, it is also on the map culturally. I live in Oak Cliff, so it’s very easy to get to these places.

Tell us about your relationship with the DMA.

I started out by coming to your office and asking what I can do to volunteer with the DMA. At the time, I couldn’t give the amount of time necessary for the docent program, but I did like the idea of the Go van Gogh program. I have a background in teaching, and I thought it would be nice to get back into the classroom. I like that the DMA has this type of in-reach and does such a good job at taking art into the classroom, getting kids excited about it, and hopefully encouraging teachers to take kids to the museum more. Teaching is something I feel passionate about along with the visual arts – I come from a family of artists and I like the fact that I can go into the classroom and do all the fun stuff, and the kids love me for it.

I’d been doing Go van Gogh for three or four years when a friend said to me one day, “You should come to this meeting about Resolana and get involved with this organization that provides programming for incarcerated women.” I am also passionate about prison reform. When I saw the creativity workshops they did, I thought yes, this combines two things I feel strongly about. I got involved almost immediately. After I had been to the jail a few times, I spoke with you and Amy about the possibility of the DMA doing something in partnership with Resolana. I was looking for ways I could take the DMA into the jail, and you suggested trying some of the programs we teach in the schools.

Jennifer leads the Arts of Mexico Go van Gogh program with Resolana participants.

What are the greatest benefits and challenges to presenting Resolana programs?

I was very aware I was teaching a different population, but in some respects they’re kind of similar. Being in the jail frees them up, and they are very good about trying anything you suggest. They don’t have self-editing about what is right and what is wrong in a class setting. The women are willing to try most things; I don’t get the same resistance I might get from sixth-grade students. The difference is, these are adults, and I didn’t want to make them feel I was doing baby stuff with them. I had to adapt the programs because certain supplies are not allowed in the jail. I also tried to get the discussion portion much more pitched toward their level. I would not lead too much, and tried to give them space. I am also in the Master of Liberal Studies program at SMU, and I took a class with Carmen Smith, who worked at the DMA for twelve years before working at the Meadows Museum. I learned a number of techniques for talking about art with groups of people that museum educators use and started to use some of those techniques. What I learned about in class went straight to the jail, and I saw a remarkable difference in the quality of the discussions.

What is capturing your time and attention at the moment?

I’m always reading something fascinating, but work right now is capturing a lot time and attention. We now have a pod in the jail dedicated to women interested in attending Resolana classes – they all live together. It means we have doubled the number of women we see every week, so I’m trying to increase our number of volunteers as quickly as I can. I am also trying to develop a program to train volunteers, using Go van Gogh as a model. The Meadows Museum has donated their studio for training sessions. That takes up a lot of my time.

My other big passion is learning. I get to take classes in all kinds of things in the Liberal Studies program. I’m knee-deep in anthropology at the moment, and I’m writing a paper about systems of value in the U.S. and in the western world in general, and how that compares to other value systems when looking at works of art.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

First grade's smartest artists

Published April 19, 2011 Art & Teaching , Creativity , works of art 1 Comment
Tags: Go van Gogh, Me & My World, Rosemont Primary

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Last month, four volunteers and I piled into the Go van Gogh van and drove south of downtown to Rosemont Primary, a DISD PK-2 school in Oak Cliff.

While Rosemont Primary is just one of the many campuses we visit with the Go van Gogh outreach program, we have a special relationship with their first grade teachers. Each year, we visit the first grade at Rosemont, presenting multiple programs in all eight classrooms and getting to know the students during our many visits. Through the years, the first graders at Rosemont have played a larger role in the Go van Gogh program than they might realize; Go van Gogh staff often takes newly-developed curricula into their classrooms. We test questions, gauge response during activities, and (most importantly) make sure that we’ve packaged an experience that’s fun, engaging, and relevant for the students. Go van Gogh staff is grateful to our first grade friends at Rosemont for the smart observations, unexpected answers, and funny moments that have helped us refine curricula, ensuring that our programs are solid.

Needless to say, we were pretty excited to return to Rosemont last month with the Me & My World program. Me & My World introduces first graders to people and places in art through stories and clues. The program features four artworks, and our conversations range from talking about families while looking at Mary Cassatt’s Sleepy Baby to thinking about heroes while looking at our Greek Gold Wreath. Students create an art activity inspired by another artwork in the program, Fernand Leger’s The Divers, drawing a picture on transparency film with a Sharpie, and layering it on top of a bright collage of shapes.

Photos from our fun morning at Rosemont, featuring the little artists and their creations, are above.

Enjoy!

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach

Community Connection: Eye-opening, Enlightening, and Fabulous

Published November 16, 2010 Art & Teaching , Community Connection , Creativity , People , works of art Closed
Tags: Art, Dallas Museum of Art, ESL students, Go van Gogh, Plano ISD, students, volunteers, workshop

Some of our devoted Go van Gogh volunteers have participated for many years, so we design special workshops for them with the goal of making connections – with works of art, with fellow volunteers, and with personal teaching experiences – in fun and fresh ways. These themed workshops often feature guest speakers, such as local artists or our colleagues in the education department.

Our last workshop focused on the theme “PLAY”; you can view pictures from the workshop in our intern Karen’s photo post. We invited Leticia Salinas, the 2009-2010 McDermott Intern for Family Experiences, to lead conversations and activities with volunteers in front of works of art entirely in Spanish. Volunteers commented after the workshop that their experience with Leticia was “eye-opening”, “very valuable”, “helpful”, “enlightening”, and “fabulous”.

Leticia leads the Paint the Town DMA Summer Art Camp.

Tell us about your connection with the DMA.

I’ve been in Dallas for about ten years, and during college I visited the DMA every now and then and attended Late Nights. Last year, I was the McDermott Intern in the Family Experiences department. I continue to help during Late Nights and other special Family Experiences programs.

What are you doing now?

I am a Special Education Bilingual Teaching Assistant at Thomas Elementary in Plano ISD. I help teachers in classrooms with special education and/or bilingual students, primarily kindergarten through second grade.

Describe your session with Go van Gogh volunteers.

I gave two tours in Spanish focusing on Jackson Pollock’s Cathedral and three hats in the African collection. This helped volunteers put themselves in the position of ESL students and also showed them effective ways of teaching these learners. Hopefully, the volunteers were able to gauge how these students feel and will be able to use that knowledge as a tool when they teach. It was a really great experience, and I enjoyed it. The volunteers were all very willing to participate even though it was a different language and they may have felt uncomfortable.

What do you consider important when working with ESL students, and how does this apply to teaching with works of art?

When working with ESL students, there has to be something more than language. You have to be really creative and think of different ways to teach a subject. This applies to all subjects. I think art is a great way to teach ESL learners because they have a visual picture of what you’re talking about. You can get creative and lead activities that are more hands-on and fun, playing with color and lines and movement. All of those concepts are easy to teach to students who don’t speak English fluently.

Finish this sentence: In ten years, I’d like to be…

I hope to be at a place where I’m happy with my job and I love what I do, whether it be working in a museum or with kids or doing something totally different that I never thought I would do. Hopefully, in ten years I’ll have it all figured out.

Go van Gogh Stays to Play

Published November 13, 2010 Art & Teaching , Friday Photos , Museum Insight , Technology , works of art 1 Comment
Tags: Go van Gogh, play, session, volunteers

Last Friday, Go van Gogh staff led a “play” workshop for our volunteers. This session led volunteers into the galleries to discuss and interact with works of art in a creative and fun way. Volunteers posed as the objects, created a yarn painting similar to Jackson Pollock’s Cathedral, as well as experience several discussions led in Spanish. A former McDermott Intern, Leticia Salinas, who facilitated the discussions, demonstrated various hand gestures and other techniques that could be utilized when facilitating programs with students who speak languages other than English.

The fun did not stop there! Volunteers used materials from the space bar in the Center for Creative Connections to create art, then continued their play session in the Tech Lab. Go van Gogh is an outreach program that brings the Dallas Museum of Art to 1st through 6th grade students in schools throughout North Texas. Allowing the volunteers to play was a unique approach of seeing the artworks in a new way and re-igniting the volunteers’ energy, enthusiam, and passion for teaching.

Karen A. Colbert
Teaching Programs Intern

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A Day in the Life of an Intern

Published October 26, 2010 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , People , works of art Closed
Tags: day, Go van Gogh, Karen, life, museum, Teaching Programs

I have been an intern at the Museum for almost two months and have had some exhilarating moments. I have enjoyed walking through the galleries with the curators as they speak about the works of art. They are walking encyclopedias. I have also had the opportunity to be a part of some great training sessions. The docent trainings, which occur every Monday, have been wonderful. The docents, along with the education staff, learn about works of arts in the collection and exhibitions. Sometimes these trainings are led by the curators, and other times, by an education staff member. The docents and staff also go into the galleries and work on activities to better familiarize ourselves with the artworks in order to create great teaching moments.

Another area of the Education Department I worked with is Go van Gogh. I have also attended a few of the volunteer trainings. Sometimes during training we go into the galleries and look at the works of art and other times we get to make artwork for the different programs we teach. Go van Gogh allows me to travel to different elementary schools in Dallas and discuss with children works of art from the Museum’s collection. How cool is that! I get an opportunity to spend one hour with students and have these amazing and in-depth conversations about artists and their artworks. By the way, another great aspect of this program is driving the Go van Gogh van.

I have recently started giving tours at the Museum. I have given two so far and each time the students have left giving me great big hugs and saying how much they have enjoyed their visit. Leading the tours allows me to continue to work with children. I will also be giving several “A Looking Journey” Tours for 4^th graders throughout the remainder of my internship.

Other moments at the Museum consists of meetings. Meeting over here, meeting over there, meeting everywhere! I want to say there is not a week that goes by in which I haven’t attended a meeting. I enjoy the meetings because it allows me to bond with the Education staff and learn how to plan for future programs. One of my favorite meeting moments was a meeting, in which the staff brainstormed fifty Ideas based on a pair of 3-D glasses. What an incredible experience.

So there you have it. There is always something exciting going on in “A Day in the Life of an Intern.”

Karen A. Colbert
Teaching Programs Intern

Community Connection: We Heart Volunteers

Published September 30, 2010 Art & Teaching , Community Connection , People Closed
Tags: Go van Gogh, students, Volunteer

Meet Deborah Harvey, who is starting her fourth year as a Go van Gogh volunteer. We can always count on Deborah for her positive and fun attitude and for her willingness to try new things. For example, Deborah bravely volunteered for an unknown task during a volunteer training focused on the different ways that people learn. Little did she know that our guest speaker was a musician, and as part of his demonstration, he taught Deborah to play a song on the guitar in a mere thirty minutes. You can see a picture of Deborah performing below.

Deborah plays a newly-learned song at volunteer training.

Tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a former teacher. Most of my teaching experience is with younger elementary students. I’m also married and have a sixteen year-old son and a twelve year-old daughter.

What motivated you to join the Go van Gogh volunteer program?

I wanted to stay in the realm of teaching once I retired. I like the opportunity to have a whole classroom experience as opposed to one-on-one interactions with students. The subject matter among all the Go van Gogh programs is varied, which keeps things interesting for me.

Share a memorable experience from your time as a volunteer.

Just today, I visited a fourth grade classroom at J. Erik Jonsson Community School with a program about Texas art. The children shared a lot about their vacation experiences and things that felt like Texas to them. I really enjoyed the wide variety of responses. One student talked about going to the beach, and another student’s family owns a ranch with longhorn cattle.

Deborah visits a fifth grade classroom at Felix Botello Elementary.

Has anything surprised you about teaching with works of art, visiting classrooms, or student responses to the programs?

At times, I’m surprised that the older children are still very engaged. Sometimes it can be hard to find a common ground or things that interest them. The programs are so age-appropriate that the kids get really engaged.

Outside of volunteering with Go van Gogh, how do you spend your time?

I volunteer as a board member at both of my kids’ schools, and I volunteer with Meals on Wheels. I also like to travel; I’m going to San Francisco tomorrow for my husband’s birthday, and our family is taking a trip to Vail for Christmas.

Thanks to volunteers like Deborah, 430 classrooms throughout Dallas – approximately 8,800 students – experienced Go van Gogh programs during the 2009-2010 school year. Request a program now for the 2010-2011 school year!

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Capturing Nature

Published August 20, 2010 Community Connection , Friday Photos , People , works of art 1 Comment
Tags: festival, Go van Gogh, Museum of Nature and Science, sketching

Last Saturday some volunteers and I spent the day sketching in the great outdoors as part of the Museum of Nature and Science’s Discover Fine Arts family festival. The day focused on connecting science and the arts, and our activity invited visitors to be both artists and scientists; exploring their surroundings closely and capturing them in a sketch. We used oil pastels, charcoal, ebony pencils, and watercolor pencils to draw the trees, flowers, turtles, fish, birds, giant swan boats, and everything else in and around the Museum’s Leonhardt Lagoon. It was a fun day!

Below are some of the artists we met and their nature-inspired creations.

Amy Copeland
Coordinator of Go van Gogh Outreach