Claremont Museum of Art Launches Pledge Drive to Fund Art Education Programs

(February 21, 2011) – As public funding for school art programs shrink, we feel the Claremont Museum of Art can fill an important role in providing art education to Claremont youth through our three education projects: Family Art activities, ArtX student art competition and Project ARTstART.

I am please to announce the CMA Education Program pledge drive and hope that you will join us in supporting these projects. A generous supporter has contributed $10,000 to fund ArtX 2011 and the Spring event is well underway. Members of the board have made significant contributions to start our Education fund and we are in the process of identifying and applying for relevant grants.

Our goal is to collect pledges totaling $120,000, enough to fully fund the first two years of the program.

Please visit our website www.claremont museum.org for further details. If we meet that goal, we will launch ARTstART in the Fall of 2011.

– Sandy Baldonado, CMA Board President

ARTstART Art Appreciation Program

Project ARTstART, directed by Rich Deely, will train high school and college students to provide exhibit-based art lessons for elementary school students. By bringing high-quality, art appreciation classes and activities to the Claremont school system, we hope to inspire, promote under-standing of art and highlight Claremont’s rich artistic history.

We have prepared a detailed 5-year plan and we are ready to launch the pilot program as soon as funding is available.

Claremont Unified School District Assistant Superintendent Bonnie Bell says “We believe this partnership will create meaningful experiences for our students — providing them with an opportunity to learn about what our community has to offer, augment our continuing work in the classroom, and strengthen ties between our district and other institutions.”

Under Project ARTstART, Museum consultants will recruit district high school and college students as teachers and mentors. These ARTstART Teens will be trained as docents to offer multi-visit arts appreciation lessons to elementary students, both in the classroom, and in local museum settings. As part of their training, ARTstART Teens will learn about how to plan presentations that employ Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS) and interact with art educators, artists, curators, and students from The Claremont Colleges.

Once prepared for their role, ARTstART Teens will work with educators at Sycamore Elementary School to deliver lessons to students related to art exhibitions at Claremont area museums and galleries. The program will conclude with a hands-on art project inspired by the exhibitions, and shaped by classroom teachers, ARTstART Teens, and the elementary students themselves. The program will eventually serve all elementary students in the district.

An independent museum consultant with over 15 years’ work in the museum field, Rich Deely has worked as an educator in art, history, and science museums in New York, North Carolina, and California. Originally from New York City, Rich has BA degrees in both history and communications from the University of Notre Dame, and a master’s degree in Museum Education from Bank Street College of Education in Manhattan. He has planned and implemented two successful museum-based youth docent programs, one of which won national recognition through the Coming Up Taller Award for Excellence in Youth Programming in 2007.

ArtX Student Art Competition

ArtX, directed by Lori Evans Lama, is a reprise of the 2009 juried student art competition and exhibition. It’s open to students in grades 9-12, who live in Claremont and attend public or private school or are home-schooled.

Artwork must address the ArtX theme “What Matters?” and winners will receive cash prizes.

The ArtX website, containing registration information and entry form, will launch on February 21 at www.claremontmuseum.org. Entries will be collected in April. Winners will be announced and exhibited in early May. ArtX is made possible by a generous donation from a CMA member. The Ginger Elliot Gallery exhibition space for ArtX has been generously underwritten by Gould Asset Management LLC of Claremont.

As the director of arts education for the Claremont Museum of Art (2007-2009), Lori Evans Lama created the ArtX project for high school students and the aRtPM graffiti art project for middle school students along with a comprehensive menu of public gallery programs.

Prior to her work with CMA, Lori was a senior programming staff member at PBS and later a vice president/broadcast executive for an international media company. Lori is also an award-winning writer, director and producer.

Family Art Activities

The Family Art Program, directed by Mary Hughes, presents creative art activities for children at City festivals. Local art educators and volunteers plan, prepare and guide young visitors in hands-on art projects.

It is inspiring to see the hundreds of enthusiastic children filling the seats of the art tables throughout the day.

Look for our booth in April at the Packing House, at the Fourth of July Celebration in Memorial Park, at Village Venture and at the Padua Hills Art Fiesta in November. Mary Hughes has been an active volunteer with the Claremont Museum of Art since its earliest days. She has an MFA in Drawing and Painting from CSU Long Beach and BAs in Art and in Communications. She has taught Studio Art courses, Art Appreciation, and Art History at the College level and at the Junior High level for 13 years.

She has also taught Art Enrichment Classes to all grades at the Elementary level for the past two decades. As an artist who shows both locally and nationally, Mary works with layering on canvas, paper and silk.