The Forgotten Audience

The Forgotten Audience

By Susan Glasser

It's a typical Wednesday afternoon at the North Carolina Museum of Art (NCMA). A retired couple wanders through the galleries, stopping now and then to read a label and peer at a painting more intently. A young mother sits on the floor with her two children, exploring a sculpture with the help of a Tour-in-a-Tote. A bevy of ladies from a local women's club climbs the stairs exclaiming about their just-concluded tour of the European collection. A class of tenth graders stands stymied in front of a huge painting by Anselm Kiefer.

Around the corner, a group of grownups are sitting on camp stools discussing a painting by the American artist Marsden Hartley. Their conversation is spirited, interrupted periodically by bursts of laughter. A teacher workshop? Docent training? A continuing education class? No, it's the deputy director of art, the head of exhibition design, the coordinator of volunteer and visitor services, the exhibitions manager and an educator talking at length about the painting, Indian Fantasy. The museum staff has emerged from office hibernation to share in a gallery experience.

Every education department, no matter what type of museum, is under constant pressure to offer the greatest variety of programs for as many different constituents as possible. Why add to the workload by offering programs for museum staff? Even though it doesn't increase attendance figures or attract funding support, the NCMA education department has implemented two staff education initiatives—one intentional, one incidental and both beneficial.

We call the intentional initiative our Education University—Ed. U. It was inspired by Pixar Animation Studios' internal education program, Pixar University. Randy S. Nelson, dean of Pixar University, said in the New York Times, "Instead of investing in ideas, we invest in people. We're trying to create a culture of learning, filled with lifelong learners. It's no trick for talented people to be interesting, but it's a gift to be interested. We want an organization filled with interested people." So does the NCMA. While not as extensive as Pixar University's four-hour-per-week sessions, the NCMA's Education University occurs ten times a year. Each of the ten educators is required to research trends in education theory, museum practices or other topics that inspire them and become the "department expert." They choose a different topic each year and then deliver their findings to colleagues during an Ed. U. session.

Delivering an Ed. U. session is written into everyone's yearly work plan—knowing you have to make a presentation to your peers is good motivation for keeping research near the top of your "to do" list. Educator Joseph Covington reports, "These assignments give us a license to learn. From time to time, I need to have something to research that is independent of program planning. I would not have spent the time to work on storytelling otherwise. I think that's the primary benefit."

Some staff undertake independent research, others draw on graduate school courses they are currently enrolled in and still others adapt lessons learned from professional development workshops. A session on stories introduced the elements of a compelling narrative and then challenged everyone to write their own—but it had to include an image from the collection and an assigned sentence such as "It was her personality that intrigued me" (coupled with a cup) or "She didn't recognize me" (coupled with a pre-Columbian mask). Other sessions were more practical, such as an introduction to Excel spreadsheets (which made departmental record-keeping more accurate and efficient for everyone). Additional sessions have explored questioning strategies, problem finding, visual thinking strategies and multiple intelligences. We've done writing exercises in the galleries and learned how to make ideas "sticky" based on the research of Chip and Dan Heath (Made to Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die). Some educators have gotten so involved in their Ed. U. session, they've asked to do two sessions (and assigned homework), as happened with the class on puzzles as a teaching tool. (It culminated in a gallery visit during which we sat in front of a Dutch painting of a winter landscape, trying to solve ten different puzzles we had invented for exploring it in a playful context.)

Carving out time to do research in a busy schedule with grueling deadlines isn't easy. But the staff still finds the experience advantageous. As educator Diana Phillips notes, "Ed. U. is like physical exercise. You know you need to make time to do it, and sometimes it hurts, but you feel so much better as a result. I appreciate that Ed. U. stretches my skills as an educator and makes me look for ways to share new information with my colleagues in creative ways." As the director of education, I found that the Ed. U. sessions also gave me an opportunity to work one-on-one with each educator to fine-tune their teaching skills and let me observe their presentation style firsthand from the perspective of a student. Plus, I've learned loads from my colleagues.

The other—incidental—internal education session was an outgrowth of our interpretive planning process. NCMA is currently in the midst of a major expansion, including a new 127,000-square-foot facility featuring our permanent collection. In anticipation of the reinstallation, we convened a "Group of 20" to begin drafting an interpretive plan. This group consists of seven curators, four educators, three members of the design department and representatives from planning, visitor services, exhibition planning, development, membership and marketing.

As part of the planning, the educators developed a session that gave everyone an opportunity to visit the galleries to contemplate and talk about the art. The Group of 20 was divided into four "studios," each of which included at least one curator, one educator and three other staff members. The idea was to put the art (but not necessarily art history) into the forefront of our thinking. In preparation for the session, the curators were asked to identify two works from their collection that they felt were particularly important, as well as several "big ideas" (such as "vivid stories," "disconnects between original audiences and contemporary viewers" and "the multiple experiences provided by a single work of art") that the group had been considering as key concepts for the interpretive plan. Equipped with this information, the educators facilitated a conversation in front of each work.

To keep the conversation inclusive—and to avoid the session turning into an art education workshop or a curatorial lecture—we began with a simple tagging exercise: We asked our colleagues to come up with words or short phrases that immediately sprang to mind when they looked at the works. These ranged from the poetic to the silly and set the tone for a no-holds-barred discussion. We then considered these words and looked to find patterns or themes and to determine how much (or how little) they helped us reflect more productively on the work.

Next we did a modified version of Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS), "a learner-centered method to examine and find meaning in visual art" developed by Philip Yenawine and Abigail Housen. The resulting conversation was wide-ranging, inclusive and immensely informative. As John Coffey, deputy director of art and curator of American art, observed, "I was stimulated by the engaging directions taken by the conversations, some leading us far away from the safely conventional." Familiar or unconventional, the conversations proved useful in helping to underscore the many ideas and attitudes that visitors bring to their experience of looking at art.

Asked about the gallery session, our coordinator of volunteer and visitor services, Robert Mlodzik, responded, "Tagging in its simplicity allowed us to connect to the art on some personal level—whether it be a familiar object, colors that stir emotions, a remembered experience—and to convey an element of that in a single word." The head of exhibition design, Eric Gaard, said, "The tagging exercise became a great moment for us to be wide open with our thoughts related to one work of art. . . . It was exciting and opened the door to seeing art in another way." He said the VTS experience "led to an extensive and animated conversation about the piece, its history, original context. . . . It was fun, and I learned more about the piece in that moment than I ever would have by just reading a label because the experience was activated by the people I was with." Tiara Paris, our exhibitions manager, said, "It is amazing what a painting will reveal if you just take the time to look at it, really look at it. The VTS experience was especially helpful. The opportunity to examine the paintings for an extended period of time with people of different academic/professional backgrounds resulted in new perspectives." Development Officer Genevieve Joseph observed that "The gallery session pushed me out of my comfort zone but also made me feel more a part of the organization." Response to the gallery session was so positive that the education department is considering starting a monthly "Look Club" inviting everyone on staff to gather in the galleries for informal, one-hour discussions.

Both of these staff education opportunities have provided numerous benefits to the institution. Ed. U. helps keep educators current on the latest museum theories and practices because it prioritizes research and provides a formal venue for sharing it with peers—and everyone learns ten times more than they could by solo effort. It allows the museum to leverage professional development expenses by providing a platform for staff to share ideas gleaned from conferences and workshops. It strengthens the department as a team; as educator Phillips noted, "Ed. U. has contributed to the sense of camaraderie in the department because everyone learns together whether we are teachers or students." Covington, the educator responsible for coordinating the program, calls it "professional literacy for museum educators."

Creating this community of learners extended to a larger cross-section of the staff during the interpretive planning gallery session. It provided staff a break from their day-to-day responsibilities and gave them time to reflect on and reengage with the museum's mission—creating what the dean of Pixar University referred to as "interested people." In addition to providing an opportunity to learn and grow professionally, it also allowed staff to open lines of communication and share experiences with co-workers they may not interact with on a regular basis. It gave us an opportunity to see our colleagues in a new light.

Of course, it benefits our visitors as well. While not all sessions have provided information or strategies that are immediately applicable to our work, others have informed the programs and resources we develop for museum audiences, imbuing them with fresh ideas and ensuring that we ground them in current theory and best practices. And as the director of marketing, Melanie Davis-Jones, remarked, the gallery session "was a powerful experience for me because it allowed for ways to explore (and appreciate) the art without the need for an art historical context. If we can provide a similar type of experience for our visitors—something that validates their reactions and lessens the intimidation factor—then we will come a long way in overcoming perceptual barriers most people have with art museums."

So before you develop another teacher open house, seniors program, family workshop or teen coffee house, take a moment to consider that forgotten audience: your colleagues.

Susan Glasser is director of education at the North Carolina Museum of Art and a doctoral candidate in the department of art history at Virginia Commonwealth University.