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Posts Tagged 'tours'

What's Not to Love About Being a Teen Docent?!?

Did you know that we have a group of twenty-seven Teen Docents who lead tours at the DMA each summer? We are lucky to be the fearless leaders of the Teen Docent program, and we both love working with this talented and enthusiastic group of students. The Teen Docent program was started because the Museum believes that teens have a unique ability to capture the interest of our youngest visitors and help them to see how works of art relate to their lives.

Amy and Shannon with some of the Teen Docents

Teen Docents are wonderful at sparking imagination in the children they tour, and their enthusiasm in the galleries is contagious. Some of the teens are new to the program this summer, and some have been with us for three or more years. The Teen Docents come from a variety of backgrounds, but one thing that they all have in common is their excitement for sharing works of art with children.

Amy and Shannon with even more Teen Docents

We asked some of the teens to reflect on their role at the Museum, and here are their responses:

“If I were able to better someone’s experience at the DMA, and not only mine, it would make being a Teen Docent at the DMA worth every minute of my time.”
“I enjoy assisting others in creative ways. It is wonderful to be around warm smiles and beautiful pieces of art.”
“I just want to be able to contribute to the greatness of the museum and in the process learn more about it. I want to show people how much fun museums are and that it’s not nerdy to love museums.”
“I like touring children that have an excitement for the art. I want to hear their perspectives about certain pieces and try to pass on interesting information they might not know.”
“My whole life, I have had an interest in art and I want to continue to feed that interest. I enjoy learning about different styles of art and artists and what better way than at the museum. Last year, I enjoyed my time as a Teen Docent enormously and I look forward to making new friends, memories, and continuing my study of art.”

It’s not too late to schedule a visit to the DMA for your group this summer. Teen Docents will be touring through mid-August, and we would love to welcome your students for a Color My World or A Looking Journey tour. Email tours@DallasMuseumofArt.org to schedule your visit!

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

Looking Back and Thinking Ahead

Published May 27, 2010 Museum Insight 1 Comment
Tags: docent, Go van Gogh, program, students, tours

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 1^st-6^th 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:

We debuted a snazzy, new van that showcased our fun, new Go van Gogh brand.
We offered an engaging, new 90-minute Creative Connections program: Lights, Camera, Action!

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

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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

Get to Know a DMA Docent

Published April 1, 2010 People Closed
Tags: docent, Interview, tours

If you have scheduled a docent-guided visit to the DMA, you already know how wonderful our docents are. We have a corps of over one hundred volunteer docents who lead tours for K-12 and higher education students, as well as our adult visitors. I recently talked with Lisa Jacquemetton to learn more about her experience as a DMA docent.

Docent Lisa Jacquemetton with Franz Kline's Slate Cross

How long have you been a DMA docent?
I am in the middle of my third year.

Why did you become a docent?
I had just finished my Masters in Liberal Arts at SMU and I loved that but I didn’t really want to take my formal education any further. One of my friends was a docent, and she suggested that I contact Molly . I became a docent primarily for the art history education, or so I thought.

Tell me about your experience in the docent program.
I’ve just loved it. I have made all kinds of new friends with similar interests—fellow docents, educators, and even getting to know the curators has been fun. I have learned much more than art history. I’ve learned how to teach, I’ve learned a lot about comparative religion, science, world history– so much more than art history. I’ve learned that I really love being around kids. Who knew?

So what makes you love being around kids?
I think it’s seeing their reaction. When you have a kid really get into a work of art, you see their faces light up, or at the end of the tour when they saw “aw, are we done” and you know that they want to keep going—it’s a high.

What is your favorite work of art in the DMA collection?
That’s like asking me what my favorite color is. I’m partial to contemporary art and Abstract Expressionism. My favorite, but it was just taken down, was The Eye by David Altmejd. I also love Franz Kline’s Slate Cross—so dramatic, so powerful, and for me, so emotional. I tend to react to art on an emotional level first, and that’s one of those pieces that makes me swoon.

Share your best tour experience.
The best tour experience I had was an Arts of the Americas tour last year. First we headed to the elevators to go up to the 4^th floor, and the reaction of these kids—they were so into it. We went through the Ancient American galleries, looking at the Inca tunic first. Then we looked at Xipe Totec, and I gave them the gory details, which they loved. And then we ended at the Olafur Eliasson exhibition which was a huge hit. We ended up in the Room for One Color, and I gave them pieces of paper inside so they could decide what color it was. One boy in my group was in a wheelchair and did not have fully formed foot, so he took off his sock and held his piece of paper between his toes. (He wasn’t able to use his hands.) When we came out, he was so into the whole experience. And here’s the best part—the kids asked me for my autograph and I wrote it on their little pieces of colored paper. I felt like a rock star. It was the first and only time I’ve been asked for my autograph. I practically flew home off my own energy that day. When the kids react like that, that’s the best.

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Schedule Soon for the Spring

Published March 25, 2010 Museum Insight Closed
Tags: Go van Gogh, spring, teacher workshop, tours

It’s hard to believe that there are only a few months of school left. The spring is always a very busy time for us, and this year is no exception. This is a good opportunity to let you know what types of programs for students and teachers are still available for the 2009-2010 school year.

Go van Gogh
All Go van Gogh programs have been booked for the spring.

Museum Visits
There are a limited number of times still available for docent-guided Museum visits. Many of these slots are during the month of April, so this is the best time to bring your students to visit The Lens of Impressionism. We have a very limited number of docent-guided openings in the month of May, and most of them are during the 1:00 p.m. time slot.

If you are unable to schedule a docent-guided visit to the Museum, schedule a self-guided visit. We have a self-guided tour resource available online that you can use to guide your students through the DMA.

To request a docent-guided or self-guided visit for your students, you will need to submit an Online Visit Request Form as soon as possible. Remaining spaces will be filled on a first-come, first-served basis.

Programs for Teachers
We will have two additional Thursday evening programs for teachers. Visit our Web site to learn more.

We also have one more Teacher Workshop scheduled for this year. Exploring Photography: The Lens of Impressionism is a two-part workshop offered on April 24th and May 1st. Teachers will spend time in The Lens of Impressionism with Dr. Terry Barrett. Photographer and educator Frank Lopez will also demonstrate the ambrotype process. Reserve your spot now before remaining spaces fill.

We hope to see you and your students at the DMA this spring!

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

A Day in the Life of the Tour Coordinator

Published January 22, 2010 Friday Photos Closed
Tags: students, tours

Today’s “Photo Post” gives you a behind the scenes look at a typical day for me. I spend a lot of time at my desk communicating with teachers (and docents) over the phone and email. But I also like to greet students as they come into the Museum–nothing beats hearing their “oohs” and “aahs” as they see the Barrel Vault for the first time! Happy Friday, everyone!

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Buses lined up on Harwood Street--it was a busy day for tours!

Some of our wonderful docents waiting for their group to arrive

Thanks for visiting, Pearson Elementary!

My desk--I like to call this Tour Schedule Still Life

Coming Soon: The Lens of Impressionism

Published December 1, 2009 Museum Insight Closed
Tags: Evening for Educators, exhibition, Impressionism, painting, photography, teacher workshops, tours

Last week, while spending Thanksgiving with my family in Michigan, I convinced my sister to drive me to Ann Arbor to visit The University of Michigan Museum of Art. I love the UMMA and always look for any excuse to visit when I am home, but this time I had a special assignment. I was there to do background research as we plan tours, teacher workshops, and online teaching materials for The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850—1874, an exhibition that will open at the DMA on February 21, 2010.

The Lens of Impressionism at The University of Michigan Museum of Art

The Lens of Impressionism is a great exhibition for teaching about artistic process—you can look at images of the same stretch of coastline and compare what painters and photographers are choosing to include in their compositions. To me, the highlight of the exhibition was seeing a handful of original paper negatives, dating to the 1850s. I can’t even begin to imagine how hard it would be to preserve a paper negative for 150 years. The negatives were displayed in lightboxes next to contemporary prints made from the negatives. They provide a great tool for teaching about photography and making photographic prints—something students may not know about in our digital age.

One of my favorite paintings from the Detroit Institute of Arts is in the exhibition—Edouard Manet’s On the Beach (Sur la plage)—and I can’t wait until it arrives in Dallas and I can visit it whenever I like. However, I think I may have a new favorite painting: Eugène Boudin’s Bathing Time at Deauville, from the National Gallery of Art. Men and women visit the beach dressed in their Sunday best—it’s definitely very different from what we wear to the beach today! I also love the horses and dogs that stand on the shore, and I think this will be a fun painting to explore with students on tours.

We will be offering a variety of programs for students and teachers relating to The Lens of Impressionism: Photography and Painting Along the Normandy Coast, 1850—1874, including an Evening for Educators on February 23, 2010. Visit our website for additional information on tours and teacher workshops, and be sure to check back in February for a new set of online teaching materials.

Me, outside of the UMMA

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

The Fourth Graders are Coming!

Published October 29, 2009 Art & Teaching , Museum Insight 5 Comments
Tags: A Looking Journey, Art, Dallas ISD, tours

Three years ago, we embarked on a partnership with the Dallas Independent School District and Dallas ArtsPartners to provide every 4^th grader in the district with a docent-guided visit to the Dallas Museum of Art. Over the past two years, we have welcomed over 22,000 DISD 4^th graders to the DMA for “A Looking Journey” tours. This week marks the start of these visits for the 2009-2010 school year.

I had the chance to tour with a group of fifteen 4^th graders from John Reagan Elementary on Tuesday. They were bright, observant, and enthusiastic—and I think every person in my group participated in our dialogue in the galleries. I always set up the idea of taking a journey at the beginning of my tour, and these students really got into it. As we moved from one work of art to the next, they imagined we were on an airplane flying from New York to Africa and Egypt and then on to Europe. At one point, I even heard train noises coming from behind me!

4th Grade Students in the Galleries

I have been looking forward to the start of these visits since July (when I first scheduled these tours), and I was downstairs on Tuesday when the first DISD students arrived at the Museum. It was such fun to hear their wonder and amazement as they walked through the doors and saw our Barrel Vault for the first time. Some of my favorite gallery experiences have happened with DISD 4^th graders, and I can’t wait to see what adventures the next year holds.

Shannon Karol
Tour Coordinator

Welcome Back, Students!

Published September 24, 2009 Art & Teaching Closed
Tags: A Looking Journey, Art, docent, students, tours

This past Tuesday, September 22^nd, was our first day of school tours for the 2009-2010 school year. I always look forward to the first day of tours—it’s my version of the first day of school. Our first visitors were 4^th graders from McKinney ISD, and they braved the rain and cooler temperatures to visit the DMA for an A Looking Journey tour.

Students waiting to enter the DMA

Our A Looking Journey tour allows students to travel the world without ever leaving the Dallas Museum of Art. The teacher who scheduled this tour requested that all students see Frederic Edwin Church’s The Icebergs and Vincent van Gogh’s Sheaves of Wheat, two stars of our American and European collections respectively. I also overheard one student asking her docent if they would have a chance to see the mummy. She was excited to be at the Museum, and the mummy was at the top of her list of things to see while she was here.*

It’s also great to have our docents back at the Museum, ready to tour. I was talking with one of our docents on Tuesday who was giving her first tour after having been away last year. She really missed being with students in the galleries, and couldn’t wait to take those 4^th graders on their Looking Journey. I’m giving an A Looking Journey tour myself today, and I am looking forward to hearing what insights my 4^th graders will bring to our tour. I always learn something new from students in the galleries, and that is why I love my job so much! And yes, I will be including the mummy on my tour…

Shannon Karol Tour Coordinator

*The mummy is on loan and currently on view in Crossroads: Where Cultures Connect. Lent by Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Gearing up for Tours

Published September 22, 2009 Art & Teaching Closed
Tags: All the World's a Stage, docent, tours

We’re definitely back in the swing of things here at the DMA, now that the new school year is well under way. Last Monday we had our first docent training of the semester, and we welcomed back almost 100 experienced docents as well as a class of 21 new docents. Dr. Anne Bromberg, The Cecil and Ida Green Curator of Ancient and Asian Art, led our training on the new exhibition All the World’s a Stage.

Our docents are rigorously trained volunteers who attend training at the Museum every Monday during the school year from 9:45 a.m. until 2:30 p.m. These wonderful volunteers lead tours of our collection and special exhibitions for tens of thousands of K-12 students each year. We are all looking forward to these school tours starting again to docent training day!

Molly Kysar
Head of Teaching Programs

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Dallas Museum of Art Uncrated

Posts Tagged 'tours'

What's Not to Love About Being a Teen Docent?!?

Looking Back and Thinking Ahead

Get to Know a DMA Docent

Schedule Soon for the Spring

A Day in the Life of the Tour Coordinator

Coming Soon: The Lens of Impressionism

The Fourth Graders are Coming!

Welcome Back, Students!

*The mummy is on loan and currently on view in Crossroads: Where Cultures Connect. Lent by Bridwell Library, Perkins School of Theology, Southern Methodist University, Dallas, Texas.

Gearing up for Tours

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