Oakmont students experience the sculpture of Betty Davenport Ford with Project ARTstART

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(March 3, 2014) – Project ARTstART, a Claremont Museum of Art education program in its third year 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 school system, we hope to inspire, promote understanding of art and highlight Claremont’s rich artistic history.

Monday March 10, 1:00pm at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden
Thursday March 13, 1:00pm at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden

We invite you to experience Project ARTstART in action as Claremont High School students of Project ARTstART lead field trips for Oakmont Elementary School 4, 5 and 6 grades to the Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden.  There, they will visit the Claremont Museum of Art exhibition Betty Davenport Ford: Capturing the Animal Spirit, take a nature walk and engage in a clay-based activity.

To prepare for their presentations, ARTstARTers met with the artist and her daughter, Cathleen Ford Miner, tested out a clay activity with ceramic artist Jennifer Grace, and developed a pre-visit lesson that they presented at Oakmont during the week of February 24th.

Launched in the fall of 2011, Project ARTstART recruits high school and college students as teachers and mentors. These ARTstART Teens are trained as docents to offer multi-visit arts appreciation lessons to elementary students, in the classroom, and in local museum settings. ARTstART Teens 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 45 high school students and three college mentors to enable ARTstART to serve 4-6th grade classes at Sycamore, Oakmont and Vista del Valle elementary schools with student-planned and presented arts appreciation activities and field trips.

Project ARTstART is supported, in part, by the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors through the Los Angeles County Arts Commission, the Flourish Foundation and the City of Claremont.