While art-starved L.A. Unified School District classrooms are the recipient of various cultural enrichment programs, few if any focus entirely on art history. Change is under way, though, thanks to the grassroots efforts of two determined women. Two years ago, Laurie MacMurray, a docent at the L.A. County Museum of Art and a resident of Sunset Mesa, established ‘Arts Matter’ with Essie Horwitz, a fellow LACMA docent who lives in Rustic Canyon. They bring important credentials to the task of providing art history programs to elementary schools. MacMurray, who is also a docent at the Norton Simon Museum, worked in marketing and business for 20 years, while Horwitz has 18 years’ experience teaching for LAUSD. As longtime museum educators, both were frustrated by the ever-growing number of students they encountered on their museum tours who had absolutely no prior exposure to art. They knocked on the doors of elementary-school heads with their proposal and were greeted with open arms, first at Braddock Drive in Culver City and now at Westminster in Venice. The in-classroom program, geared to kids in third, fourth, and fifth grades, introduces artists from a variety of time periods and genres in a series of one-hour sessions taking place over six weeks. Armed with reproductions of art mounted on large poster board, the docents present fast-paced, interactive lessons that teach students how to identify the elements of art, provide facts about an artist’s life and a glossary. The students, most of whom speak English as their second language, also create a relevant art project. Arts Matter supplies all the materials, including a teacher packet with suggestions on how to connect the lesson with language arts and history. At Westminster School, a recent session MacMurray taught in a fifth grade classroom focused on Van Gogh. Others artists spotlighted are Brueghel, Vermeer, Matisse, Picasso, Rivera, and American artists Bingham and Remington. ‘The enthusiasm is huge,’ says teacher Tara Burgess. ‘I can hear the hum before Laurie arrives.’ The hum is followed by quiet, with kids attentively posed for MacMurray’s opening question: ‘Who knows Van Gogh?’ Hands shoot up, and one student eagerly shares a bit of the artist’s famous biography. ‘He cut part of his ear off.’ This leads into a discussion of emotions, and how Van Gogh expressed his with the use of color. ‘I’d use the blackest black I could find,’ says one student in response to the question of how he would express anger. MacMurray has the kids imagine what they would see while lying down outside at night and looking up at the sky. Then she holds up a big reproduction of ‘Starry Night’ to audible gasps of delight. Pieces of black construction paper and pastels are distributed for students to experiment with creating their own version of ‘Starry Night.’ The eventual goal is to establish a bus fund to allow students to visit a museum as the culmination of their in-class studies. Arts Matter, with nonprofit status as a 501(c)3, is making strides toward that, recently receiving a $15,000 grant from the Ahmanson Foundation. ‘Our vision is to have the program operating in every third, fourth and fifth grade classroom in these schools and expanding into other schools,’ says MacMurray, who is eager to begin recruiting new volunteers to fulfill this mission. Currently, the two founders work with only one other volunteer, Palisadian Sandra Alarcon, a fellow LACMA docent. The three will have taught more than 350 kids this year by the end of May. ‘We know arts education is linked to better cognitive skills,’ says MacMurray, who sees Arts Matter’s objective as fostering critical thinking and better language skills in addition to developing a basic understanding of art. ‘I feel sure we are having an impact.’ To learn more about Arts Matter, including how to become a volunteer, send an e-mail to MacMurray at laurie@artsmatter.org.
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