Art & Community Start Here

Hi everyone,

With Big Day of Giving around the corner, I wanted to share some highlights from this past year at the Pence. As the Education Director, I'm lucky to be able to work with K-6 students during ArtSmart, the Pence's field trip program. This program is really special to me for several reasons:

1) I get to walk through a Pence exhibit with K-6 students. We talk about how there's no right (or wrong) way to look at art, and I ask them what they think or find interesting about an artwork. More often than not, a student will say something out of the blue that is so wise, and it will completely change how I look at a work of art. For example, a fourth grader, after looking at Maryann Steinert-Foley's Blue Strider (pictured below), told me that her sculpture looked like a body of water in motion, or maybe the ocean gently carrying a ship to safety. I loved this description so much that I had to tell the artist - and she loved it too!An ArtSmart group looking at Maryann Steinert-Foley's sculpture, Blue Strider.2) Our K-6 students get to actually create their own work of art inspired by what they see in a Pence exhibit. Last year, for example, the Pence had a show called A New Spin on Vinyl, where artists re-purposed and transformed old vinyl records into works of art. Not only did the kids get to see and learn about these pieces, but they also received their own record from Armadillo Music, which they could use as a canvas of sorts to create their own artwork. Kat, our teaching artist, even brought in her record player to show the kids how to play a record and to encourage them to listen to music. Some of the students had never seen a record before, but quite a few walked away from the Pence saying that it was their favorite field trip of the year!

Flossie, my Education Intern, leading a tour of the exhibit A New Spin on Vinyl.

3) I get the chance to work with some pretty amazing people who help make each field trip a memorable experience - our K-6 students, our ArtSmart teaching artists (Kat and Jen), our Pence volunteers (a special shout-out to Tracey, Brooke, and Amy), my Education Interns who help lead the tours (Flossie and Kaitlyn were my two stellar interns this year), and a lot of incredible teachers and parents from local Davis schools.

All that to say, ArtSmart is a pretty special program at the Pence. It helps us connect students with art and with the gallery, but more than that, it encourages us to connect with and learn from each other.

For this Big Day of Giving, I'd like to ask for your help in making this program accessible for a lot more students. At this time, we offer limited field trip spots per year, and we actually had to turn away quite a few teachers who were interested in bringing their classes to the Pence. But with your support, we can offer 5-10 additional field trips next year, so more students can visit us. With funding from Big Day of Giving, we'd also like to start a scholarship fund for ArtSmart, to help schools who may not be able to afford the cost of the field trip.

Any donation, large or small, really helps! You can donate to the Pence directly through this fundraising page or through the Big Day of Giving website, from now until May 7th. All donations are tax-deductible and help us towards our fundraising goal.

Thank you so much for your support and for making the Pence a special place! 💖 

Katharine Schultz, Education Director