Project ARTstART - Claremont Lewis Museum of Art

Project ARTstART, the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art’s signature arts education program, directed by Rich Deely, trains high school students, working with college mentors, to provide exhibit-based art lessons for elementary school students. By bringing high-quality, art appreciation classes and activities to the Claremont schools, we hope to inspire students, promote understanding of the arts, and highlight Claremont’s rich artistic legacy.

Launched in the fall of 2011, Project ARTstART recruits high school and college students as teachers and mentors. These “ARTstARTers” are trained as docents by college mentors to offer multi-visit arts appreciation lessons to elementary students in their classrooms and in local museum settings. ARTstARTers learn how to plan presentations that employ Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) and interact with art educators, artists, curators, and students from The Claremont Colleges.

ARTstART’s roster now totals over seventy Claremont High School students and five Project Assistant interns who enable ARTstART to serve all 4-6th grade classes at Mountain View, Oakmont, Sumner/Danbury, Sycamore and Vista del Valle elementary schools with student-planned and presented arts appreciation activities and field trips. In addition, ARTstARTers serve approximately 125 students a month with our AfterARTs series of art-making workshops for students enrolled in CUSD BLAST or ASES after-care. Hundreds more children are served by ARTStation at community festivals and free Family Day workshops, which are offered at the Museum on the first Sunday of every month.

Project ARTstART is produced solely by the Claremont Lewis Museum of Art in partnership with the Claremont Unified School District (CUSD) and provides programming for students from eight participating schools: Chaparral, Condit, Mountain View, Oakmont, Sumner/Danbury, Sycamore, and Vista del Valle elementary schools, along with Claremont High School.

The program is funded by generous donations from the Ruth & Joseph C. Reed Foundation for the Arts; City of Claremont, Community Based Organizational Grant; Claremont Sunrise Rotary; Claremont Kiwanis Foundation; Scripps Fine Arts Foundation; as well as CLMA Board members and many dedicated community donors.

Partner programming for this year was provided by American Museum of Ceramic Art (AMOCA); Benton Museum of Art at Pomona College; California Botanic Garden; Claremont Heritage; The Claremont Colleges Services; dA Center for the Arts, Pomona; The Peggy Phelps Gallery at Claremont Graduate University Studio Arts; Ruth Chandler Williamson Gallery at Scripps College; The Sam and Alfreda Maloof Foundation for Arts and Crafts, and The Susan Sontag Center for Creative Collaboration ‘The HIVE’ at Pomona College.

Project ARTstART is led by Rich Deely who has worked as an educator in art, history, and science museums in New York, North Carolina, and California. Learn more about Rich here.

ARTstART Offers Art Activities on YouTube

Teams of high school students in CLMA’s Project ARTstART have prepared a series of simple do-at-home art projects to present to elementary students in Claremont schools. These fun 5-minute videos are now available to everyone on the Claremont Museum of Art YouTube channel.

Futures in Flight https://youtu.be/Ihjtksls6k4

Layered Collage Project https://youtu.be/ysKtSQnoY6c

Saar Collage https://youtu.be/WoKCQHNO6sg

Pattern Portraits https://youtu.be/jjul1yCtPFo

Art with Music https://youtu.be/OIg9StKZQcs

Garden Collage https://youtu.be/CBscXS4esTk

Positive Character Trait Silhouettes https://youtu.be/WPBF2Q0sf6E