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Community Connection: Why Is This Art?

Published September 27, 2011 Uncategorized 2 Comments
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Over the past five years, the DMA has collaborated with area arts institutions in a weeklong program called Museum Forum for Teachers: Modern and Contemporary Art.  Participants spend an entire day at a different institution throughout the week, including the Kimbell Art Museum, Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Nasher Sculpture Center, and The Rachofsky House.  In the process, they become familiar with the Modern and Contemporary art currently on view in these spaces, as well as the programs, resources, and Education staff at each institution.  I had the pleasure of leading the discussions and activities at the DMA this past summer, which was also my first opportunity to work with Erin Starr White from the Modern (you may recognize her from an earlier blog post).

Describe your role at the Modern.

I am one of three Assistant Curators of Education.  My role is to work with the academic community.  My youngest audience is 3-4th graders, but I predominantly work with middle school and high school students as well as graduate students.  I also work with all the educators for those populations by leading workshops, speaking at career days, and speaking to teacher groups.

Erin working with educators in the galleries during this year’s Museum Forum for Teachers

What are some advantages to working in a museum that only collects Modern and Contemporary art?

It’s what I love;  it’s what I studied in grad school.  I focused on really Conceptual art from the late 60’s and early 70’s with a focus on New York artists.  I’m interested in the pluralism that occurs in Contemporary art – art is no longer just one thing; it takes a multitude of different shapes. Talking about the ideas and forms of Modern and Contemporary Art with students and teachers can bring about the very simple question, “Why is this art?”  This question often opens up a really great dialogue: “The Museum says it is; why do you think it is or is not art?”

Trace how you got to your current position at the Modern.

I studied Art History as an undergraduate student at University of Texas at Arlington. During my time there, I worked as an intern at the Dallas Contemporary.  I took over a position there as Program Coordinator for a little over a year to gain hands-on experience before going to graduate  school, and to determine if working in a museum setting was really what I wanted to do.  I then studied Art History in graduate school at Texas Christian University, while I worked as a part-time Curatorial Research Assistant at the Modern, tracking down paintings, talking to galleries, and securing loans.

After a year as a full-time Curatorial Research Assistant, I decided I wanted to do something more involved with people, more hands-on, and more fulfilling for me personally.  I wanted to work more with the public and with the art.  This job came up a little over two years ago, and it’s worked out really well so far.  I had a limited background working with kids, and I hadn’t worked with teachers at all, but it’s been a nice fit getting to work with educators of all levels and students of all ages.  Since my background is in Art History, I hire artists to come in and lead studio art projects.  I hire about twenty artists a year to come in and work with different groups, so I go on studio visits and get to know local artists to see if their work would fit well with certain exhibition.  For example, I am currently working with Michelle Mackey, an abstract painter heavily influenced by Richard Diebenkorn in conjunction with Richard Diebenkorn: The Ocean Park Series.

Erin working with educators in the galleries during this year’s Museum Forum for Teachers

What has been the most inspirational artist or exhibition for you?

We have a great lecture series called Tuesday Evenings at the Modern; for me, the most fulfilling lecture was by Lawrence Weiner.  I’ve always been a really big fan of his work – he was one of the
pioneers of Conceptual art – and he was here at the Modern!”

Also, Declaring Space: Mark Rothko, Barnett Newman, Lucio Fontana, Yves Klein (September 2007–January 2008) was one of the most fulfilling exhibitions for me.  It was wonderful to see works that don’t travel very often, all in one place.  This show was one I revisited as often as I could, taking in a room full of Rothkos hung the way he wanted, lit the way he wanted them to be lit; instances of Newman’s sculptures along with his paintings; roomfuls of Fontana’s work – canvases that have been slashed, metals that have been slashed; and  Klein’s enormous monochromatic blue  paintings.

What is your favorite work of art at the Modern, and why?

I can’t choose one favorite, but there is a gallery installed right now that is breathtaking.  It has three of Agnes Martin’s paintings and a little suite of her prints.  What I appreciate about her work, and about these in particular, is that they show her process.  They show her solution for artmaking – the grid – and all the different permutations that takes.  These works have a handmade “look” and have such expressivity and feeling.   Initially, you don’t get that sense; you have to look closely to pick it up.  These works are installed with our permanent collection and are nice to compare and contrast with other Abstract Expressionists on  view, as she considered herself an Abstract Expressionist.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Teen Docent Program: Loads of Fun

Published August 2, 2011 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight , People 7 Comments
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Every summer something special happens at the DMA.  High school students from around the DFW area lend us their free time to participate in our annual Teen Docent program.  Celebrating ten years of summer fun, the Teen Docent Program offers an invaluable experience for teenagers, ages 14-18, to learn about art, sharpen their speaking skills, and interact with younger students in the galleries.

Teen docent Jennifer Mayen discussing Miguel Covarrubias's "Genesis: The Gift of Life"

This summer we have eleven returning students and thirteen fresh faces, and it’s easy to spot all of them in their official “uniform,” which includes a gray Dallas Museum of Art t-shirt and a Teen Docent badge. 

Most often you’ll find them around the Museum carrying a docent bag full of fun supplies and guiding a group of students on an Animal Safari or A Looking Journey tour.  Other times, you may see them helping out on weekends with Family Experiences programming like Studio Creations and Collections Connections, or pitching in with program hits like First Tuesday or Late Nights.

Teen docent Tennessee Bonner handing out supplies

I asked one our new teen docents, Tennessee Bonner, why he wanted to join the program. “The reason I joined the docent program was the fact that I would be able to help the museum and I would have fun doing it.”

What a great answer!  Teen docents are not only summer tour lifesavers, but they help create a fun, learning environment for younger audiences.  It is the teenagers’ willingness to learn about the Museum and share their enthusiasm with younger students that makes this program work.   

2011 Teen Docents

For the past ten years, the Teen Docent Program has become an integral part of our summer programming.  I commend all the volunteers that have donated hours of their cherished summer time, and I hope to see many of them next summer.

Loryn Leonard
Coordinator of Museum Visits

Ordinary to Extraordinary: A Short Story about Chairs

Published March 15, 2011 Community Connection , Creativity , People Closed
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“Success in your career begins in an ordinary classroom, in an ordinary chair.”
 — Diana Maldonado, grade 11, Skyline High School (DISD)

 

Standard-issue classroom chairs

It is a good thing to see the world from a different point of view every now and then.  We can stand and walk in someone else’s shoes, but what is it like to sit in someone else’s chair? What if the seat of this chair rises only fourteen inches above the ground?  I recently had the opportunity to take a seat in these small-size chairs while visiting pre-K and kindergarten classrooms at Dealey Montessori, Medrano Elementary, and Urban Park Elementary in DISD. Two 11th grade students from Skyline High School, Yvonne and Lauren, joined me during the visits to interview several young students who sit in fourteen-inch chairs every day at school.

For me, sitting in one of these chairs is a little bit magical.  The world is scaled down and tiny – chalkboards hang at a lower level, tables are shorter, and objects on the lowest bookshelf (which seem to require a further reach) are more colorful and interesting.  The chair-sitting experience  may also be magical for the students who sit in these small chairs every day as they get used to going to school, learn to write, and make new friends. Chairs are an important part of the school day.  They are a place to sit and rest, but also a place to participate in important and creative work.  Students shared with Lauren, Yvonne, and me various examples of the work they do in their chairs:

  • learning to read books
  • making a lion mask
  • practicing writing letters and words
  • drawing butterflies, ice cream cones, and hearts
  • singing with friends
  • painting
  • counting numbers

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Our visits to schools are part of a larger partnership project between the Dallas Museum of Art and the Architecture Cluster at Skyline High School.  Lauren and Yvonne are just two among more than eighty Skyline Architecture Cluster students who created an amazing installation now on view in the Center for Creative Connections.  The installation, Sculpting Space: 299 Chairs, features fourteen-inch, standard-issue classroom chairs in all colors as the primary material.  The Skyline students have transformed ordinary chairs into extraordinary chair assemblages that sculpt the space of one gallery.  Museum visitors move through the space, walking under and around clusters of chairs.  Look for more information in the coming weeks about Skyline’s unique installation on the blog Uncrated.

Google Sketch-Up model for a chair assemblage that reflects the spatial concept, "fluent"

Early in the partnership project, Skyline students and their teachers, Peter Goldstein and Tom Cox, had the brilliant idea to get “used” chairs from three DISD elementary schools.  They were interested in chairs with stories to tell — marked-up with years of scratches and crayon scribbles.  The DMA purchased hundreds of new chairs, and then Skyline students swapped the new chairs for old chairs at Dealey, Medrano, and Urban Park.  As part of the process, the elementary school students were invited to draw their chairs, write about them, and think about all of the many things they do while seated in the classroom.  Video interviews with pre-K and kindergarten students about their chairs are included with the DMA installation.   Special thanks to the teachers, students, and staff at Dealey Montessori, Medrano Elementary, and Urban Park in DISD for being a part of this wonderful partnership!

“The one true connection we have made was with the chairs and when we were little kids.  They bring back memories of our childhood.  We also have a connection to the students who once sat in these chairs where they did their work, and colored and painted.”
Luis Garcia, grade 10, Skyline High School (DISD)


Nicole Stutzman
Director of Teaching Programs and Partnerships

 

Creating Narratives

Published March 10, 2011 Art & Teaching , Resources , works of art Closed
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Over the past few days, I have been thinking about the ways we communicate through words and images.   In grade school, we are taught to look for contextual clues to determine the meaning of unknown words.   We make the same application when we look at images that are both familiar and unfamiliar to us.   Images are all around us – in books, magazines, newspapers, advertisements, and museums, just to name a few.

To make sense of what we see, we often create events in our minds about what we think the image is about.  For example, a work of art may suggest a story to us – the work could show the beginning, middle, or end of a story.  Some artworks may be more narrative than others.  Take a look at the following images by artists Charlie White and Gregory Crewdson.

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In the photograph Untitled (boy with hand in drain),  Gregory Crewdson encourages us to look closely at the scene of a young man reaching down the drain into a sinister-looking space below.  Using a sound stage or working on location, Crewdson directs each photograph as if it were a feature-length film, placing his models exactly where he wants them.   Everything in the photograph has a specific purpose from the Scope mouthwash on the sink to the soap in the shower to the light from the window.

In Inland Empire, Charlie White draws our attention to the lower left side of the photograph where a woman wields an iron pipe at a hideous monster.   Although the scene appears as if it is from a science fiction movie, it seems strangely familiar, like an urban American landscape that we have encountered at some point during our lifetime.   This computer-assisted photograph demonstrates the influence of special effects on the technique and process of photography and the motion picture industry.

The stage is set and ready for us to complete the stories.   What do you think happens next in either Untitled (boy with hand in drain) or Inland Empire?  Use all of the contextual clues in the photographs to aid in creating a new narrative.

To explore more photographs in the Museum’s collection, go to Picture This: 20th and 21st Century Photographs.

Until next time….

Jenny Marvel
Manager of Programs and Resources for Teachers

Artworks featured:

Gregory Crewdson (American, born 1962), Untitled, 2001-2002 Digital C-print, The Rachofsky Collection and the Dallas Museum of Art:  DMA/amfAR Benefit Auction Fund, 2002.45

Charlie White (American, b. 1972), The Inland Empire, 1999 Light jet chromogenic print mounted on Plexiglas, Dallas Museum of Art, Mary Margaret Munson Wilcox Fund, 1999.180

Staff Spotlight: Shannon Karol

Published February 2, 2011 Art & Teaching , People Closed
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Usually, I interview artists, educators, and community partners with whom we partner in various programs.  This month, I’m turning the spotlight on our own Shannon Karol.  Shannon has worked at the DMA since 2005, with the exception of a short stint back in her home state of Michigan.

Tell us about your history with the DMA.

I first came to the Museum in 2005 as a McDermott Graduate Curatorial Intern, and I worked with Dr. Roslyn Walker, our Curator of African art.  A big part of my intern responsibilities was working with scholars to gain permission to use their contextual photos in our catalog of the African collection.  I did a bit of background research for the catalog, too.

I went away for a year to work at the Kresge Art Museum at Michigan State University, and returned to the DMA in August 2007 as Tour Coordinator.

Just last month, I was promoted to Manager of Docent Teaching and Gallery Interpretation.  I’m now responsible for the Museum’s 108 docents, which includes training and helping them learn best practices for teaching in the galleries.  I’ll also continue to work with some of our partner schools and school districts on their annual museum visits.

To what part of your new position are you most looking forward?

The most immediate thing I’m looking forward to is representing the Museum at the Super Bowl on Sunday.  I’ll be there to talk about connections between the Cowboys Stadium Art Program and our Big New Field exhibition.

I’m also looking forward to training a new docent class and helping them get excited and prepared to be in the galleries with our student visitors.

On the field at Cowboys Stadium last fall with Molly and Amy

What do you miss most about Michigan?  What do you like most about Texas?

I miss my family the most.  But I do not miss the snow.

What I like most about Texas is having a part of my family here and spending time with my three  teenage cousins, two of whom are teen docents.  I also love the Texas weather when it’s seventy degrees and sunny in January.

What do you do in your free time?

I sew.  I enjoy making purses and skirts, and I’m currently working on a dress that I plan to wear in Paris when I visit for the first time this summer.

How does your love for teaching with works of art extend outside the DMA?

Once a year, when I go home to visit my family in Michigan, I go to school with my sister to talk with her third-grade students about art.  We look at images of famous works of art, including paintings from the DMA collection.  I have them make up stories, write poems and tell me about what they see.  We end the day with a “Pollock-ing” activity, which involves dipping marbles in paint and rolling them around in a baking tray lined with paper.  Then, the kids make their own Andy Warhol-inspired self portraits.  My sister takes black and white photographs of the students, and we give them highlighters to color in their portraits.

Shannon stands between the pillars of her two “home states” at the World War II Memorial in D.C.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Community Connection: 1 month, 56 tours, and 4,300 fifth-graders

Published January 18, 2011 Community Connection , People Closed
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For the past four years, Garland ISD has committed to bringing every fifth-grade student to the DMA for a one-hour docent-guided visit.  Such an endeavor requires an extensive amount of time, resources, and coordination of staff, teachers, students, and docents.  This impressive undertaking is possible thanks to Brenda Hass, Fine Arts Coordinator for Garland ISD.

What is your role with Garland ISD?

I am the Fine Arts Coordinator; I work with our K-12 art and theater program and our elementary music program.

Describe your relationship with the DMA.

I began working with the DMA when I was in another school district and learned about the tour program.  When I came to Garland, one of the things I set in motion right away was to make an arrangement for all fifth-graders to come to the DMA for tours that align with social studies TEKS.  It’s been a great relationship.

How, and why, do you manage such a large task?

We do it because we feel it’s important.  Many children wouldn’t have the experience of coming to an art museum if we didn’t provide it.  The majority of our forty-seven elementary schools are considered Title 1 and are located in lower socioeconomic areas.  Whatever the students’ backgrounds are, we want to them have the opportunity to visit.  We choose to put our money and our time here.

 
 

Brenda is also a talented piano player.

What is the most memorable thing that has happened during these tours?

Every year after our DMA tours in January, I always receive an email from a classroom teacher who had never visited before, wanting me to know what an amazing experience it was for his/her children and thanking me for providing the transportation.  I think a lot of people who didn’t get to visit museums as a child don’t go to museums as adults.  But once they have an opportunity, they don’t want to miss it.

What is your favorite part of your job?

Being with children.  If it’s theater, watching them perform in a show.  With art, I may be helping them organize exhibitions of their work.  In music, I’m watching a program or working with our children’s chorus.  Whatever role we have in administration, we have to continue being around the children.  That’s what keeps us fresh and keeps us on the cutting edge of education. 

Also, I am passionate about making sure our students have a museum experience.  I think that everybody, child or adult, should do the same.

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Community Connection: Eye-opening, Enlightening, and Fabulous

Published November 16, 2010 Art & Teaching , Community Connection , Creativity , People , works of art Closed
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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.

Community Connection: We Heart Volunteers

Published September 30, 2010 Art & Teaching , Community Connection , People Closed
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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

Community Connection: Our Friends and Neighbors

Published June 3, 2010 Uncategorized 1 Comment
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Dear loyal blog readers,

We have a new summer blog post schedule.  Look for new posts on Wednesdays and Fridays.  Have a fabulous summer!

The opening of the AT&T Performing Arts Center last fall brought our friends at the Dallas Theater Center (DTC) to the ever-growing Dallas Arts District.  Having comfortably settled into their new home at the Dee and Charles Wyly Theatre, the DTC has developed programs and collaborations as innovative as the building itself.  Lisa Holland, Director of Education and Community Programs at the DTC, gives us a peek behind the scenes.

Tell us about your new home at the Wyly Theatre.
The Wyly Theatre is remarkable – there’s not another theater like it in the entire world.  The flexibility that it affords is unparalleled and I think that we, as the primary tenants, are going to learn about this building as time goes on.  I think the possibilities are going to be limitless in this building.  I also think our patrons are going to be the lucky beneficiaries of seeing what this building can do.  It’s like a giant transformer.  What that provides to the patron in terms of the audience to artist relationship is going to be powerful and immediate. There’s nothing like it.  

Also, the synergy between other organizations in the Arts District and the potential collaborations that exist now is so thrilling.  I think about how we can collaborate with our friends and family at the Arts District in ways that will be really engaging and exciting.  To walk down the street and see who you’ll run into, or walk down the street and have a meeting at the DMA – it’s exciting. 

Do you ever consider integrating or thinking about works of art related to your programs?
Absolutely.  In the past, we’ve incorporated a visual arts component in our SummerStage program.  I believe that whatever kind of artist you are, you need to “feed your hopper”.  In other words, you pour into yourself different experiences, whether it’s a trip to the zoo or going for a walk and looking at leaves.  You never know what will inform your work as an artist.  

Also, we deal with a lot of visual arts formal elements like color, line, and composition in the theater.  And, we have had collaborative events with the DMA in the past, such as sending artists to the DMA and working with Arts & Letters Live.

Tell us about the Shannon and Ted Skokos Learning Lab, your new partnership with Booker T. Washington High School for the Performing and Visual Arts.
It was brand new this year, and it was a resounding mutual success. Last spring, we auditioned the rising juniors and from that group chose eighteen seniors.  The Learning Lab has three components.  Kevin Moriarty (DTC Artistic Director), Charlton Gavitt (Booker T. Washington High School Theater Cluster Faculty), and I team-taught the class component, which occurred every other day, all year long.  The second component is a twenty-hour internship that students complete outside of class hours.  The final component is a performance project, in which we paired the students with our professional acting company, and they performed ten scenes in the Wyly Theatre with the professional actors.  The students also came to every single show we produced this year, free of charge.  This is a super exciting program, and I don’t think anywhere else has that sort of integrated relationship between a school and a professional theater with that kind of access.  The program is a great example of the kind of collaboration that can happen in the Arts District – it was so simple to walk across the street, teach, and walk back to my office.

How did you come to your position as Director of Education & Community Programs?
I grew up in the theater.  My parents took me to theater and I’ve been a theater student my whole life.  After I earned my graduate degree in directing, I was hired as one of two artistic directing interns at the Dallas Theater Center thirteen years ago.  I was hired to work in the artistic office after my internship year, and I basically never left.  I defected into the education department about halfway through my tenure, but that made sense because my undergraduate degree is in theater education.

What program/performance are you most looking forward to this summer?
We have a program called SUPERStage (SummerStage’s alter ego), where we have theater day camps for kids ages 4-14. I’m also looking forward to our summer production It’s a Bird…It’s a Plane…It’s Superman.  I’m so excited about having a mainstage show running concurrently with our SUPERtage program.  Our SUPERStage students will have access to what we do in a primary way, and we’re going to enfold into the curriculum what is happening on stage so it becomes a learning lab of sorts.  It’s going to be awesome.  Superman – what can you say – there’s flying  –  it’s Superman!

Melissa Nelson
Manager of Teaching in the Community

Looking Back and Thinking Ahead

Published May 27, 2010 Museum Insight 1 Comment
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It’s hard to believe that the 2009-2010 school year is already over.  We will have our last Museum visits and Go van Gogh trips tomorrow, and we wanted to take this opportunity to share some of the highlights of the year with you.

Go van Gogh Classroom Outreach
Volunteers are at the core of our programs, and without their invaluable assistance, we would not be able to reach the number of students we do each year.  A great big thanks to:

  • all of our Dallas volunteers.  We visited 406 1st-6th grade classrooms in Dallas, seeing over 8,330 students.  
  •  all of our volunteers outside Dallas.  We presented a total of over 240 programs to 4,800 students in schools outside Dallas city limits.  These are especially impressive numbers as each and every program that takes place outside Dallas is scheduled, coordinated, taught, and otherwise made possible by volunteers. 

Go van Gogh volunteers work with local artist Ann Marie Newman

The year also brought new initiatives for the Go van Gogh program:

Go van Gogh volunteers work with local artist Ann Marie Newman

All in all, it was a great year.  Go van Gogh volunteers, we appreciate your hard work and dedication to bringing fun and meaningful art experiences to North Texas students.  Teachers, we thank you for bringing Go van Gogh into your classrooms.

Museum Visits

Our schedule has been jam-packed with Museum visits all year.  Thank you to the students and teachers who visited the Museum, and thank you to our docents who make all of these tours possible. 

Docent Denise Ford welcomes her group to the DMA.

We had many highlights during the year, including:

  • providing docent-guided and self-guided Museum visits for 51,821 K-12 and higher education students.
  • sharing several wonderful exhibitions with students.  We were able to make works of art come alive in All the World’s a Stage, and we transported students to 19th century Normandy in The Lens of Impressionism. 
  • continuing relationships with several school districts.  This was the third year of our partnership with Dallas ISD where every 4th grader comes to the Museum for a docent-guided visit.  We welcomed 11,535 DISD 4th graders for A Looking Journey tours this year, and we can’t wait to see DISD’s 4th graders again next year.

4th grade students examine the Pair of Lokapalas

______________________________________________________

So there you have it, the highlights of thirty-two weeks of programs for the 2009-2010 school year.  The 2010-2011 school year will be here before we know it, so we encourage you to start thinking about your DMA and Go van Gogh visits now.  Be on the lookout for our postcard this summer, reminding you to visit our Web site on August 1st to schedule your programs.  Have a wonderful summer!

Amy Copeland and Shannon Karol
Coordinators of Go van Gogh Outreach and Museum Visits

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