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MUSEUMS AND COMMUNITIES NEWS
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| Akron Art Museum
Akron, OH
Art Babes is the Akron Art Museum's program for babies 0-18 months and their adults. Here an Art Babes program takes place in front of Helen Frankenthaler's Wisdom. Learn about baby tours in Akron and at other AAMD museums below. Image courtesy of the Akron Art Museum |
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Museums and Communities News is our roundup of stories demonstrating the myriad ways AAMD member museums serve their communities.
AAMD Museums: We Want Your Stories! If you have a story you'd like us to consider for Museums & Communities News please contact Alison Wade.
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Access Art: Touch Tours at the Harn Museum of Art
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| | At the Harn Museum of Art twenty local and University of Florida student artists presented and described their art, encouraging a dialogue, as participants explored the objects through touch. Photo by Adrienne Johnson |
This two-part program, offered on March 12, included a nature-inspired touchable art installation provided and presented by local artists, as well as verbally descriptive guided tours of art in the exhibition Framing Nature: The Living World in Art with touchable art based on the original objects.
The community installation included 49 works, primarily three-dimensional, including ceramics, wood sculptures, paper origami, printed plastic lithopanes and mixed-media. Twenty local and UF student artists presented and described their art, encouraging a dialogue, as participants explored the objects through touch.
"Offering a program for visually-impaired citizens to be able to understand and enjoy art supports our mission of being accessible for all," said Harn Museum Director Rebecca Nagy. "For those participating who have sight it provides additional ways to approach the art prompting longer looking and possibly discovering elements of the work that may otherwise have been missed."
Partners for this program include the Division of Blind Services, National Federation for the Blind Gainesville Chapter, Gainesville Lion's Club, Dr. Mary Ann Nelson and students from her course EEX3093: Exceptional People: School & Society, UF Disability Resource Center and the UF Museum Studies Graduate Program. Program partner and Harn student intern Kimberly Crowell's work on the development and improvements of "Access Art: Touch Tours" is part of her thesis work in Museum Studies.
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Starting Them Early: Babies in the Art Museum
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| | | Video of Toledo Museum of Art's Baby Tours | |
A growing number of art museums are offering special programs catering to babies and toddlers (and their adults).
The Akron Art Museum is another AAMD museum that caters to the youngest humans. Their Art Babes program is a monthly event for children 18 months and younger and their adults. "Many visitors have shared that witnessing the carefree, unscripted experiences of their children at the museum takes them back to their own childhood, helping them to unplug from the day's frustrations, recharge and tune in to the present with their kids," according to Dominic Caruso of the Akron Art Museum.
Aside from serving community - and allowing parents a chance to unplug - these programs are also beneficial for infant brain development. Learn more about baby tours and brain development in the above video from the Toledo Museum of Art.
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Community Partners Map
Aspen Art Museum
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Aspen, CO
Each dot on the above map represents a school or community partner that the Aspen Art Museum serves. Click through to view more detailed maps and lists of all community partners. Below images of Aspen Art Museum programs courtesy of the Aspen Art Museum. |
El Museo de Brooklyn es Para Tí
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| | El Museo de Brooklyn Es Para Tí. Photo by Casandra Girald |
This free family program takes Spanish-speakers of all ages into the Brooklyn Museum's galleries to look at art and engage in conversation with bilingual museum educators, highlighting artworks and artists from Latin America. Participants also have the opportunity to meet a Brooklyn-based guest artist and learn about their artistic practice. Following time in the galleries, families head to the studio to create their own art projects to take home, and enjoy refreshments.
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Museums Show Student Art for Youth Art Month
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In celebration of Youth Art Month, several AAMD museums displayed artwork by local students in their galleries during the month of March.
Youth Art Month emphasizes the value of art education for all children, encourages support for quality school art programs, and promotes art material safety.
Youth Art Month also provides a forum for recognizing skills developed through visual arts experiences that are not possible in other curriculum subjects.
Many regions and states show public exhibitions of artwork created in K-12 art classes - including in art museums.
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| | Anchorage Mayor Ethan Berkowitz taking an "us-ie" at the opening reception of the Anchorage School District Art Exhibition at the Anchorage Museum. The exhibition theme is the "Selfie: Culture through Self Expression." Image via the Anchorage Museum Facebook page. |
The AAMD museums hosting Youth Art Month exhibitions are:
- Anchorage Museum, Anchorage, AK
- Birmingham Museum of Art, Birmingham, AL
- Crocker Art Museum, Sacramento, CA
- Portland Museum of Art, Portland, ME
- Worcester Art Museum, Worcester, MA
"I hope seeing the artwork students make will cause more people to want to support visual art programs, and to join us in advocating for the arts," Li Ezzell, California YAM chair and art teacher at Hiram W. Johnson High School in Sacramento said of the Youth Art Month exhibition at the Crocker Art Museum . "I hope it gives student artists a boost of confidence that they have the skills to continue with art, if that is something they are thinking of pursuing."
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Register for Blue Star Museums
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The National Endowment for the Arts and Blue Star Families invite you to become a Blue Star Museum for 2016! Last year more than 2,000 museums - including many AAMD museums - offered free admission to active duty military personnel and their families between Memorial Day and Labor Day, providing more than 839,000 service personnel and families with outstanding museum experiences.
AAMD is proud to be a Blue Star Museums partner. We strongly urge US art museums to participate in Blue Star Museums!
If you offer free admission to everyone or offer free admission to military year-round, it's important to register for Blue Star Museums so active duty military and families can find you!
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