Educational Programs at de Young

photo: Philip Liborio Gangi

Rodin's famous statue "The Thinker" greets visitors at the Palace of the Legion of Honor in Lincoln Park.

By Judith Kahn

Collect, preserve and exhibit are the key words articulated in most museum mission statements, but the Palace of the Legion of Honor and the Fine Arts Museum of San Francisco have added a new component to their missions - to educate people about the art featured in their permanent and special exhibits.

They have 30 different programs, all of which have the same intent - to encourage people to "interact" with art.

The programs offered by the Fine Arts Museums are geared for people of all ages. Free programs exist for children from three-and-a-half years old to seniors. The goal is to have people experience museums as places to interact with art, as opposed to just viewing art.

The new de Young, which opens in October, is designed to make this happen. The de Young offers five main programs:

The first program is called Friday Nights at the Museum. On Friday evenings the museum has extended hours in an effort to accommodate families. The activities featured on Friday nights complement the special exhibit that is being featured at the museum. For example, in April of 2002, the museum hosted Dada and Surrealism Nights, which featured costume parties, silent films accompanied by the Hot Club of San Francisco and Dada art performances.

To complement the de Young's popular Eternal Egypt exhibition in the fall of 2002, different programs were offered to educate children and adults about Egyptian food, music, dance and henna art.

In celebration of the Courtly Art of the Ancient Maya collection, a film series was featured and the Dia de los Muertos celebration was held.

Another program the de Young sponsors is "Get Smart with Art." This is the only museum that offers arts education curricula for all grade levels. Its program is specifically created to meet the California State Content Standards in language arts and social studies. The program supports both students and teachers in public schools.

The museum offers students ready-made syllabi that are both age and curriculum appropriate. The curriculum package includes visual classroom aids and professional development materials for teachers.

"Get Smart with Art" utilizes art objects as the jumping-off point to help students develop visual literacy, historical knowledge, artistic expression and expository writing skills. This allows students to interact with an exhibit that they may not be able to visit.

Sheila Pressely, director of education for the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco, said, "I want the children to take ownership of the collection."

On the first floor of the new de Young, visitors' will be drawn to The Kimball Education Gallery. The centerpiece of the Gallery will be Collection Icons, three interactive installation designed to teach different ways of understanding art. The giant floor-to-ceiling glass panels, which will be touch-screen activated, will explore a particular work that is representative of the museum's multicultural collection. Users will be able to explore topics of their choice.

Developed in 1999, Artist Studio Program is the first of its kind in an American art museum. Each month, the de Young will invite a Bay Area artist to work in the museum to share the artistic process with museum visitors. The program seeks to offer the intimacy of an artist's studio while engaging visitors in the creation of traditional and more experimental artwork.

Visitors can view works in progress as well as completed pieces, which will be on display. In Feb., the studio featured an artist's work titled, "Frog Food." The theme was take-out food and visitors were invited to eat their lunch in giant replicas of Chinese take-out containers.

The Museum Ambassador Program, introduced in 1982, is a successful program which gets young adults to get their peers to interact with art and develop an appreciation for the artistic process.

The Museum Ambassador Program hires and pays low-income San Francisco high school students while preparing them to become ambassadors of the museum. It was created to introduce public high school students, who mirror the ethnic makeup of San Francisco, to visual arts as a resource for exploration and learning.

Through these programs, students develop leadership and teaching skills. It also provides the students with a positive job experience, which they can use as a foundation for future employment success and it helps them develop leadership, communication and teaching skills.

The museum's educational office is now temporarily located at 2500 Irving St., at 26th Avenue. For information about programs, call the Fine Arts Museums at (415) 668-2480 or go to the website at www.thinker.org.