The Wildling Art Museum is pleased to announce that it has received a three-year grant from the Adams Legacy Foundation in Santa Barbara to fund its new ArtSmart Program. ArtSmart is a program, pioneered by the Wildling, that utilizes framed reproductions of famous American paintings to teach core curriculum subjects.
It will be launched this fall at the Santa Ynez Valley Charter School with a workshop for teachers and a curriculum booklet which will assist teachers in implementing the program. After an initial evaluation, it will be available to other Valley schools in subsequent years.
Mariann Cooley, Director of the Santa Ynez Valley Charter School, is very excited about this opportunity to utilize art to reinforce core curriculum concepts. “One of the missions of the founding parents of our school was to have a strong art curriculum, but resource restrictions made that challenging. Now with the aid of the Adams Legacy Grant and two new State grants for art instruction and materials, we will be able to realize our dream.”
“Schools everywhere are focused on improving test scores. Teaching through a variety of modalities can help in developing proficiency in core curricular areas, particularly for students who may be better equipped to learn concepts through images rather than through written texts. The ArtSmart grant will support the strong academic program we currently have in place.” says Cooley.
“We believe” says Penny Knowles, Director of the Wildling Art Museum, “that our ArtSmart program, if adequately tested and properly implemented, could be helpful to both teachers and students in achieving fundamental learning objectives in all subjects (Math, Science, History/Social Studies, and Language Arts as well as Fine Arts).”
Melinda Weymouth, art instructor at the Santa Ynez Valley Charter School, who has helped the Wildling develop this program, will also be responsible for implementing it, both at the Charter School and elsewhere in the Valley.
Anyone interested in learning more about this program or how it could be implemented in your school is welcome to call the Wildling Art Museum, 688-1082.