Making Art Accessible

 

May 29, 2019

Michelle Summers, resident artist with the Holter Museum of Art in Helena.

Michelle Summers, a professional artist originally from Portland, Oregon, who currently serves as a resident artist with the Holter Museum of Art in Helena, Montana, presented an art program to Meadowlark Elementary on Monday, May 13, as part of the Art Mobile Montana Program.

Similar to a bookmobile that expands the reach of traditional libraries by transporting books to potential readers and providing library services to people in otherwise - under served locations, Art Mobile Montana (AMM) provides a traveling art outreach program for schools, the general public, and diverse groups who may have limited access to museum quality art exhibits.

Meadowlark School Principal Jon Martin described the presentation as both an assembly and individual classes for each grade. The first assembly began at 8:40 a.m. for grades 4-6.

Summers, a ceramic artist by profession, is the Holter Museum of Art's first artist in their recently established Artist in Residency (AIR) Program. The AIR is dedicated to enriching the lives of artists and to providing them with space to create.

According to Summers, the AMM is the only program of its kind in Montana. This statewide service offers interactive presentations of curated exhibits, hands-on art lessons by a professional artist, and teacher education. "AMM emphasizes the importance of art and of relating to art in a personal way," Summers said. "It also educates, through art, about the diversity of the human experience, culture, practices, customs, and history."

The traveling exhibit includes works from approximately twenty-five contemporary Montana visual artists with thirty per cent of the curated exhibit representing the works of Native American artists. After students complete a gallery walk of the art, Summers plans to ask them to explain how seeing art in person made them feel.

In Summers' view, we are all born curious, creative, and with a desire to tinker and express ourselves, and art represents a visual language for that expression."

Summers will then show each of the pieces in turn, inviting students to notice how the artist guides the eye and creates a narrative. "As people come together to discuss art and as it speaks to us, art has power to create a dialogue. We often start with the questions: What do we see? and What do we know? Then, we respond with stories of our personal connections that are mirrored onto the artwork," Summer said.

Following this interactive show and share session, Summers will lead students in an art lesson.

For answers to any questions or to schedule the Art Mobile, interested persons should contact Sara Colburn, Executive Director and founder of Art Mobile Montana (AMM), by calling 406-217-4418.

AMM is a non-profit organization supported in part by a grant from the Montana Arts Council and from the National Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great art. Partial funding for this project was also provided by Montana's Cultural Trust, the Town Pump Charitable Foundation, and the Gallagher Western Charitable Foundation.

 
 

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