In the fall of 2007, the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation solicited proposals from museums in Texas for minigrants to support the creation of digital materials for visual arts education and related activities. The foundation’s goals were to build on the training provided to Texas art museums in the first phase of the project; to stimulate and facilitate the production of high quality digital presentations; and to realize the potential sea change new media promises for visual arts education in Texas.
Between September 2007 and April 2009, the foundation awarded a series of minigrants to participants in the Edward and Betty Marcus Digital Education Project for Texas Art Museums to create visual arts education projects using digital media. The major goal of the project has been to stimulate the creation of a body of materials that can be shared among Texas institutions to support arts education in museums, schools, and university programs. As such, a requirement of the grant program was that materials produced with Foundation grant dollars or other support be licensed for use by any not-for profit educational institution, museum, or visual art education organization in the state of Texas.
This website, containing visual arts education projects that integrate digital media, represents the collected work of the minigrant recipients. Project proposals were submitted under the following categories:
- Online educational materials in support of traveling exhibitions
- Outreach projects aimed at first-time museum visitors, for example, 4th and 5th grade students
- Curriculum-related presentations for students in K-12
- Adaptation of existing educational materials to the media-rich Pachyderm format
- School-related collection sharing
- An open category for creative uses of the Pachyderm authoring tool
- Digitized media suitable for, and licensed for, reuse by nonprofit educational organizations within Texas
On behalf of the Edward and Betty Marcus Foundation and the 26 institutions that participated in the Edward and Betty Marcus Digital Education Project for Texas Arts Museums, you are invited to explore the array of resources within these pages.
The pieces in the Marcus Collection represent a significant investment of time and expertise on the part of museum staff. Each multimedia presentation has its own unique flavor and perspective about the artists, collections, and artwork it describes. Full of rich stories and engaging media, the pieces in the collection reflect the depth of knowledge, content expertise, and variety of subject matter that is found among Texas art museums.
Highlights from 2007-2008
Across the projects, one of the most popular topics explored is the lives of artists. From a local Texas hero from Corpus Christi (Billy Hassell) featured in the Migration project by the Art Museum of South Texas, to a glimpse of Pablo Picasso through an in-depth examination of his work Portrait of Sylvette, a wide range of artists is described in the pieces. Another popular subject is temporary exhibitions. Students from the University of Texas at Austin collaborated with museum staff from the Blanton Museum of Art on a presentation for the exhibition titled Reimagining Space: The Park Place Gallery Group in 1960s New York. Ballet Austin and Arthouse created a show-stopping interactive for their world premiere of Cult of Color: Call to Color.
Two-thirds of the presentations completed in the first year are directly targeted to schools and schoolchildren. The San Angelo Museum of Fine Arts created a video-rich piece that helps students understand how ceramics are made in Journey of Pots. Young Artists @ Arthouse helped disadvantaged high school students prepare portfolios of their work to help them get into college, documenting the process and the young artists’ work. These are just two examples of many that have been specifically designed to serve as educational pieces for young people.
Several of the projects made significant contributions to arts education in the form of new primary source material that can be used by scholars anywhere. Among these, the work of the Austin Museum of Art in videotaping twenty important emerging artists in their studios was also picked up by the local PBS station, KLRU, for a special hour-long program on the topic.
These are just a few of the very special pieces produced in 2007-2008.
Highlights from 2008-2009
The increasing depth of experience among museum staff is evident in the pieces completed in the second year of mini-grant awards. Project planning, storytelling approaches, and preparation of media assets all reflect a higher level of comfort and capability with digital media. Museum staff requested training in more advanced techniques, such as post-production customization of the look and feel of their pieces, and the pieces overall took less time to complete.
The Amarillo Museum of Art created two stunning presentations related to their American Modern Art collection that tell the little-known story about how their collection was formed, including visits to Amarillo by New York School artists during their heyday. Two pieces from the Ellen Noël Art Museum, Museum Manners and Frank Gervasi, treat their subjects with a subtle sense of humor. The Dallas Museum of Art expanded the Artistic Voices project from 2007-2008 to include video clips of previously inaccessible archived materials consisting of original interviews about influential artists including Jasper Johns, Andy Warhol, Jackson Pollock, Jacob Lawrence, and Linda Ridgeway — and more than 30 others.
Many of the museums have been applying the digital storytelling skills they have developed to other exhibitions and pieces created outside the scope of the Digital Education Project. Both Ballet Austin and the Amarillo Museum of Art have made it standard practice to create online pieces for every show they hold. Additionally, the education department at the Dallas Museum of Art produced a presentation that features the perspectives and reflections of eight North Texas educators on the artworks by Olafur Eliasson.
The works completed in the second year of the mini-grants — the third year of the project — are deep, rich, and engaging. Best of all, it doesn’t end here. Museums continue to create and share beautiful educational materials, using skills and equipment acquired with a carefully targeted philanthropic investment. Please explore the projects described here, and visit the museums’ websites to see new work.
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