The Big Picture

I had a fantastic meeting this afternoon.  The "Program Inventory Task Force" are definitely my people.  Not only did they compliment my shoes, but they're also involved in some really interesting stuff.

For a number of purposes (but it appears mainly to be for funding issues) this team has been assembled to inventory the programs that the museum conducts.  I don't have much more information about this group because we talked mostly about me and my own project(s) for the duration of the meeting.  See?  I told you it was a fantastic meeting.

As I said, I am working with the AAMD to create a map of the museum's "partners", with each "partner" represented by a colored dot on the map. 

Sample AAMD Partner Map

The people in the meeting with me had LOTS of thoughts on this, and it eventually turned into a discussion / debate about the definition of the word "partner".  Are corporate sponsors considered partners?  What about wedding receptions?  How about those community entities that we've reached out to, but have yet to ever use the museum's resources?  All good questions.

I couldn't come up with a concise definition either.  I guess I'm thinking of it this way: In a time when Detroit is so downtrodden and people are reluctant to support museums and other cultural institutions... what would you want to show those citizens to convince them that the DIA is out there, mixing it up with the community, and thus worth their support?

Do people care that we have deals with all of the area  hotels?  Maybe.  Do they care that we send a docent to School X every month to lead interpretive activities?  Probably.  I think it might be logical to identify those "partners" that hit home with the public (be they churches, schools, retirement homes, etc.) and emphasize our relationships with them.

The task force is working amongst themselves to compile a list of viable "partners", which I will later submit to the AAMD.  Their policy at the moment is to call almost everyone a "partner" and then look at my finished list and eliminate any that stick out or seem not to fit.

I don't have a better plan, so this sounds fine to me.

This first week of interning has been a little slow in terms of sit-at-the-computer work, so Sondra gave me permission to do a number of different things with my free time.  She told me I could feel free to tour the museum on my own and just wander around.  I also have permission to crash any of the public tours, which occur daily at 1pm.  And I was also invited to tag along on any of the school tours (only about 1000 kids every day.  No big deal.)

I took a public tour yesterday, another one today, and then a school tour.  I loved all of them for very different reasons.

The school tour was awesome. It was a combined group of 5th and 7th graders from the burbs, and it was a really good group of kids, so that helped.  The docent informed them that she would be using a method called Visual Thinking Strategies, and talked briefly about it before moving into the galleries.  It was really great to see VTS in action, but I noticed that the docent "cheated" (her words, not mine) a few times along the tour.  She later confessed to me that she wanted so badly to discuss the meaning of the art with the kids, that she just couldn't help herself--and ultimately dished a few historical details that are not VTS approved.  However, the group had done really well with interpreting the works, so her few comments did more to help than distract the kids.  I told her that I thought it worked well.  Also, I was unfamiliar with a few of the works she chose to present to the kids, so I was able to enjoy the tour in much the same way the students did, which was pretty fun.

My two public tours were also great.  The title of the tour is "The Big Picture" and it's a 45 min - 1 hr overview of everything the DIA has to offer.  In other words-- it's impossible.  I would actually say that it's more of a taste than an overview, especially since each docent gets to pick their own route.  I saw completely different galleries with each docent, which I thought was great.

Docent # 2 won me over with her interpretation of the Rivera Court.  It's a place I have been millions of times, but she still managed to show me new things.  That alone was impressive.  Another thing I liked about Docent #2 was her use of VTS.  Our group was all adults, but she still used the VTS methods.  Though, after she asked us "what's going on in this painting?" she then followed it with the "answer" and provided a lot of history.  This group of generally well-educated adults (many seemed to know a LOT about art) wasn't really at risk of becoming frustrated by hearing that their answers were "wrong"-- whereas that can be detrimental to a child's development of art appreciation.  It was an interesting combination of VTS and traditional interpretation methods, and I really liked it.

Here's something scandalous:  When the education director at the DIA first suggested that VTS should replace their current interpretation method, it did not go over well.  Many people in the museum perceived VTS as a threat to what the DIA represents.  After all, it's an art museum-- and VTS teaches NO art history at all.  But I give the DIA a ton of credit for taking what they viewed to be a very risky initiative and reinventing their education strategy.  Lucky for them, it now means they are on the cutting edge of museum education.