Some readers of this blog may remember “Wait, What? Toddlers in an Art Museum?,” a post from January 2023 about the Clyfford Still Museum’s (CSM) journey to become more inclusive for families. That post discussed Clyfford Still, Art, and the Young Mind, an exhibition co-curated with children as young as six months old. The experience was a turning point for our outreach to young audiences, proving that it was indeed possible to accommodate and even collaborate with them in an all-ages art institution. Before we began our work, many of our internal and external stakeholders were skeptical of infants’ ability to choose their favorite works of art. However, sharing the research videos of our infant co-curators making selections converted these skeptics into believers. (We later shared an edited version of this documentation in the exhibition so that all visitors could see infant participation for themselves, which 74 percent of adult visitors said enhanced their experience, in a summative evaluation from Trainer Evaluation.)

The profound impact of making infants visible in our museum led us to reflect back on AAM’s Excellence and Equity report (first published in 1992 and then 2008), particularly its second key idea: “Museums must become more inclusive places that welcome diverse audiences, but first they should reflect our society’s pluralism in every aspect of their operations and programs.” As the next step in our efforts to make this true for young audiences, we decided, based on conversations with early childhood educators and caregivers, to develop CSM’s first infant education program, Art Crawl. Here, we’ll share our experience with this program and our successes with infant inclusion. While this post focuses on our own experiences in art museums, we welcome conversation about infant programming and initiatives in other types of museums.

Art Crawl: Engaging Our Youngest Audience

CSM started offering Art Crawl in March 2022 as a program for families with infants between birth and fourteen months to engage with art, build relationships, and learn together. Surrounded by Clyfford Still’s expansive body of work, infants and caregivers who participate are invited to engage with a variety of multisensory materials that support discussion about the artworks around them. Art Crawl directly addresses the historical exclusion of children by creating an inclusive environment where our youngest visitors can feel a sense of belonging.

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Drawing pedagogical inspiration from the Reggio Emilia approach, Art Crawl values the people involved, recognizing that infants, caregivers, and museum educators are all lifelong learners who contribute rich assets to the program and each other. We see the children as current citizens of the world with individual preferences and interests, who can engage in and determine their own learning experiences as well as contribute to the continuous development of our programming. We see the caregivers as the children’s first and best educators in every environment, encouraging them to build relationships between ideas, thoughts, things, and settings as they pursue their natural curiosity. We respect caregivers’ differences in values, beliefs, and social practices as they show up in program interactions. Finally, we value the collaboration and intentionality of our museum educators, viewing them as researchers, always observing and listening to children to understand their curiosities, and responding to their needs. Our museum educators do not seek to control nor to wield power; instead, they collaborate with the children as they discover the world and engage in inquiry. These program and institutional values allow Art Crawl to be a place of learning for all people.

When we first started Art Crawl, we offered it twice each month, but with the support of the PNC Grow Up Great grant, we later expanded the program to three times per month, with themes changing monthly. The program begins in The Making Space, our hands-on creation studio adjacent to our galleries. We gather in this space for introductions, community-building, and exploration of open-ended materials related to monthly themes. Then, our educators lead participants into the galleries to explore the artwork and engage with intentional provocations based on the theme. Examples of program themes include:

• ABC’s of Curating, written in collaboration with Bailey Placzek, our Curator of Collections, Catalogue Raisonné Research and Project Manager, focuses on close-looking practices and infant aesthetic preferences.
• Guardians of the Galleries: Conservation Practices, developed in collaboration with James Squires, our Chief Conservator, invites infants to explore cause and effect and the concept of color theory.
• Into the Archives, written alongside our Archives team, focuses on the exploration of our archives and the components of storytelling.

“You Can’t Start Early Enough”

CSM is fortunate to be a part of a growing movement in museums and cultural organizations committed to serving our youngest audiences. Last year, Routledge published Kathy Danko-McGhee’s Viewing Art With Babies: First Encounters, the first book to provide practical strategies for fostering experiences of looking at art with infants. Earlier this year, a recent article in the New York Times, “Children and Museums: You Can’t Start Early Enough,” proclaimed that programming for young children in traditional museums is “on the rise, now more than ever.” A museum consultant interviewed for the article attributed the current growth to two factors: museums’ future financial stability and alignment with their educational missions.

One of the museums that has joined this movement is the Vero Beach Museum of Art (VBMA), whose infant and toddler programming now includes a monthly Museum Babies & Toddlers program and a weekly Museum Stories program. In a recent conversation with the museum’s Director of Education, Sara Klein, we learned that the impetus for these programs came from a 2018 commitment to make the museum more family-friendly. At that time, the museum lacked any formal programming with an explicit invitation for families with young children, which Klein believes is the best “way in” for the audience. Fortunately, VBMA had staff at the time with more than fifteen years of experience in early childhood education, giving it the in-house expertise to develop and support this new programming. In the years since, the programs’ success has extended to financial impact. As Klein shared, “For last year’s annual fund letter, we invited a mom who went through the sequence of our programming offerings, starting with infant programming, to write a letter to our potential funders. Her letter and photos netted us nearly double our annual fund goal.”

CSM’s infant programs have followed a similar trajectory, drawing on in-house expertise to attract families who may not otherwise visit. As one caregiver participant shared, “Because now I know that Clyfford Still is a good place, I’m going to focus on [returning there].” Art Crawl consistently sells out each month. CSM Director Joyce Tsai notes, “Our infant program has garnered the attention of the field and has attracted funders who want to invest in this research-based, high-impact program at our museum. Its financial impact has been a net positive because of the new audiences and funding it can attract.”

Continuous Shared Learning

Creating and implementing a program for infants and their caregivers shapes an institution’s perspectives on including young children as members of an art museum’s community. It empowers staff to understand that because art can sustain dynamic, interactive engagement, it can support infant experiences and development, which become an essential and additive aspect of the museum community. As Art Crawl began in 2022, the staff at CSM embraced this shift. For example, CSM’s Manager of Visitor Experience, Andy Cushen, shared, “We are certainly more deliberate with how we approach children, and we are likely to ask them more questions and take their observations of art more seriously than we may have before. Children affirm for us just how unnecessary a prior background in art or the history of Abstract Expressionism is to see the work of Clyfford Still.”

Staff perspectives continue to shift and adapt as we deepen our understanding of this program and our relationships with the community members who have become a consistent part of the museum experience. We see this as ongoing work rather than something to arrive at, making our shared learning an essential part of continuing this work.

This drive for continuous learning led us to partner with Trainer Evaluation to better understand the perspective of adult participants in the program. Five caregivers participated in the first year of this longitudinal study. Trainer Evaluation interviewed each caregiver multiple times about their experiences at Art Crawl and the impacts on their interactions and relationships with their infants. We heard a wide range of emotions and experiences in their responses. For example, some caregivers expressed a sense of anxiety because this was one of their first experiences with their infant in public. In response to this insight, we created a “Know Before You Go” video for caregivers to illustrate what happens before and during the program, which we share on our website and in the program reminder email.

More than anything, we heard that Art Crawl brings a sense of joy to its participants and cultivates a sense of belonging at CSM. One Art Crawl participant shared, “Overall, it made me think that Clyfford Still is one of those places that is for everyone … I’ve been to places before where it’s like, oh, I’m too loud; my kid is too annoying; this is too delicate. Even if I worry a little bit about keeping the art safe, the fact that the program exists makes me more likely to feel comfortable bringing my family there.”

CSM continues demonstrating its commitment to deepening children’s early experiences with art. We see the value in learning alongside others in our field and consistently inviting new perspectives to challenge and deepen our own understanding of our programming and approaches to education.

The Future of Art Crawl

Now, in Art Crawl’s third year, we’ve started expanding the program beyond the walls of the Clyfford Still Museum. Following a demonstration of the program during the 2023 AAM Annual Meeting in Denver, Emily Thomas, Head of Learning + Programs at the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts (MMFA), approached us about licensing the model with funding from the Art Bridges Foundation. Grant funds will cover the cost of training and ensure that Art Crawl is free and open to the public over the next two years. Thomas shared that, “pre-pandemic, MMFA offered a monthly infant program called Baby and Me, and [the community] have expressed the need to bring programming back for caregivers and developing young learners.” The process of licensing the program for MMFA (which was new to CSM staff) led to the development of the Art Crawl Handbook, a professional development series, and a marketing toolkit, but most importantly, a new community of museums facilitating and learning from this program and the families who participate in it. We are grateful to have new partners in shared learning. If you are interested in licensing the program from the Clyfford Still Museum to bring the joy of Art Crawl to your museum, learn more at clyffordstillmuseum.org/artcrawl or email learning@clyffordstillmuseum.org.

In addition to expanding to other states, CSM has begun expanding Art Crawl into other community sites around Denver, after hearing from various community partners about increased requests for infant programming. In fall 2023, we received a three-year grant from the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS) for this purpose. Denver Public Libraries and Catholic Charities Mariposa became committed partners with CSM on this grant, offering the community’s cultural context and collaboration on program development. We are designing a mobile version of the Art Crawl program tailored to implementation at community venues. Our partners have been essential to this expansion, offering their depth of insight from the communities they serve as we consider how to bring an infant program to a variety of different locations throughout the city.

In closing, given our understanding of the historical context, community needs, and the inclusion imperative in our field and individual museum missions, we ask how museums can effectively foster growth in infant offerings in meaningful and sustainable ways.