Learning To Talk About Art At The Aldrich Museum

By Tanjua Damon

The Aldrich Museum of Contemporary Art provides an unusual opportunity for students to experience the art world by becoming teachers for their peers, engaging in conversation about exhibits displayed at the museum in Ridgefield.

Newtown Middle School eighth graders took part in the museum’s docent program, which allows students to bring small groups of their classmates around the museum to discuss the exhibits. The middle school docents introduced their peers to the exhibit “Paper” on April 5 at the museum.

The docents, Sarah Davis, Allie Hornak, Kendall McChord, Stephen Moulthrop, Lenora Thornton, Jenna Tredger, and Jessica Yakush, took part in five one-hour training sessions facilitated by Anne Murphy, event and gallery manager, where they learned techniques that would help them stimulate conversation with their peers about the pieces of art.

“We talked a lot about different techniques of listening. We encouraged them to respect each other so they can provide a stimulating conversation,” Ms Murphy said. “It’s really important to encourage the students to form their own opinions. Using the material to communicate different ideas, but lead questions back to the students to have a greater conversation, which encourages them to interact personally with the work.”

“Paper” is an exhibit of contemporary work by artists who use paper not only as support for paint and pencil, but also as a sculptural medium. Docents showed their peers pieces of art that brought paper into a different light for the middle school students.

Being a docent was not an easy task for many of the students. Being able to initiate conversation and keep their peers on track were challenges during the museum tour.

“Starting the conversation [was difficult],” Jenna Tredger said. “Everyone was just staring at each other.”

“I thought the hardest thing was thinking of the first question to ask them so they would get thinking about the art,” Jessica Yakush added.

The docent program is not about students memorizing facts about artworks and artists. Instead it encourages students to visualize and talk about what the piece of art does for them.

“I was nervous. I was kind of afraid of making a mistake,” Stephen Moulthrop said. “I found out a lot of my opinions were formed from us interacting. Then I would make an assumption myself to figure out what the piece was about.”

Coming up with questions, keeping the conversation going, and getting the tour group to simply talk about a piece of work were challenging aspects of being a docent.

“It was hard for me to get them to understand that I wasn’t talking to them about the artwork,” Sarah Davis said. “They were supposed to tell me about the art work.”

Sometimes members of the tour came up with ideas that may have been a bit off the beaten path; part of being a docent is to bring your audience back to the task at hand

“Trying to get them to go on the right minded track” is how Kendall McChord explained it. “Some of them would have some far-out ideas. It was hard to get them back on track.”

Listening was another big skill that students and docents had to look at. Trying to understand a piece of art yourself and hear what others are saying about it can prove to be challenging.

“You have to listen to other people’s opinions about the piece,” Allie Hornak said, “while others are trying to figure out what the piece is about themselves.”

Being on a tour at the museum was interesting for the students, but Alex Rote admits that it was hard to not want to explore all the things he was seeing.

“Sometimes you wanted to go over and see something you were not being shown yet,” he said. “Sometimes you could see something but didn’t know how to explain it.”

The “Paper” exhibit brought a new focus of the material to many students’ minds. Seeing how artists took something so simple and transformed it into something so complex brought a new dimension to the student artist.

“Trying to decipher what the art was meant to be. Paper can be made into so many different things,” Caitlin Malloy said. “It was hard to know what the artist wanted to bring out. I never realized paper could be a beautiful piece of art. It just brought into view of what art can do.”

Middle school art teachers find the museum program a great way to show students the world in which they live and the profession of art.

“Our masthead says a culture is explained through its art. Any exposure to art explains the culture you live in. It adds to your understanding,” Arlene Spoonfeather said. “At your age you are about to start the real world, to go to an art gallery to see the job possibilities there. This would hopefully open your mind to all the possibilities.”

Claudia Clancy Mitchell agrees that the program provides students an opportunity to see the art world and to gain leadership experience.

“The opportunity to be a docent is a wonderful experience to step into a leadership role,” she said, “to find out when you are educated in artwork that you can then lead a group.”

The Aldrich has been providing the Docent program since 1993, according to Melanie Zalman, museum educator. Over 40 schools in the area participate in the educational program.

“Part of what we try to do in the program is demystify the museum,” she said. “I think ultimately, besides increasing all of the skills, it helps them feel more comfortable and their assessment level to comfort with art.”

The program is based on the idea that students will learn more through a question process delivered by their peers. Through questions posed by docents, it initiates communication about appearance and content of the artwork.

“Just by talking about what you see with other people, you can arrive at observations and conclusions that a curator would actually write. I think the children are actually surprised with themselves,” Ms Zalman said. “For young and old alike it is learning a set of skills. Trust your observations and ideas, and learn to be a good listener.”

The Aldrich Museum offers many educational opportunities for students of all ages.