A couple of weeks ago, I attended a symposium titled, “Breaking the Rules of Engagement: New Perspectives on Thinking about Art,” at the Denver Art Museum, or DAM, as it is so lovingly called. The weekend included art, culture and new ideas about museum goers and supporters. I explored the museum and city, but I was there particularly to meet with other museum professionals and discuss the future of docent programs.
The symposium centered on new ideas in docent presentations. Three interesting speakers at the conference were James Chung, Michael Cassin and Shelly Casto. They talked about tapping into proven trends and integrating new and creative ways to actively engage a visitor’s quest for the visual. Many discussed that the old ideas about tours were not the way to entice audiences. Instead, engaging in interesting conversations surrounding the work of art is the preferable method.
Michael Cassin, Director of the Center for Education in the Visual Arts at The Sterling and Francine Clark Art Institute, was my favorite speaker. Within his discussion, he outlined how to make art conversations dynamic and relevant. He is a talented educator, but he also showed, by example, how to have a conversation around art and his success at getting even the toughest of audiences to enjoy art works. His insistence that you can really get people active with subtle and deliberate shifts in tone of voice is the way I would like to discuss art.
The trends in docent program are all pointing to the very things that we are doing at the Pulitzer. We insist that the visitor’s personal experience be the utmost goal for each guest. We also utilize docents for our Exploring Art program, which helps build personal conversations around the exhibition. After the conference, I’m even more eager to experiment with ways to create wonder through Exploring Art.
I feel I need to be thinking a step or two ahead as far as programming – how to do that is the real question. I feel that one of the major blocks for our guests looking at work is that they feel intimidated. How disarming would it be to have a middle-schooler guide your experience?
Right now, I have a docent protégé: a middle schooler who has participated in community programs since the Community Light Project. She is a very mature 12-year-old with an interest in the arts, and she is our youngest docent. It’s important that our future generation of viewers see art as something important to them. With Grand Center Arts Academy recently moving into the neighborhood, I’m hoping to recruit more enthusiastic young docents, by working out a system for them to earn credit while learning about art. This plan was running through my head as I left the docent symposium.