The Emerson Center for the Arts and Culture is developing a team of volunteer docents to assist with their Schools in the Gallery exhibit program. The Schools in the Gallery program is an interactive docent led tour of our current exhibits in the Jessie Wilber and Lobby Galleries. Following the tour groups have the option of creating a hands-on art activity that directly relates to the exhibit. This program serves public, private and homeschool groups grades K – 8.
Prospective docents will be responsible for having an interest in the arts and desire to inspire that same interest amongst youth, be able to share relevant art terminology and discuss artistic processes with groups of children, and must be available morning or afternoon for two to three hour periods. A docent training session with the artist, Youpa Stein, will take place on Tuesday afternoon, September 8th. This is an invaluable opportunity to learn about the artist’s process and ask questions which will assist you in educating tour groups. They will also go over how to lead a tour and the related art project. Here’s a little information about the current exhibits. This fall, the Jessie Wilber Gallery is showcasing the work of Missoula artist Youpa Stein. Slyvae [Of the Forest] features hand-made masks, meticulously crafted from materials gathered from the forest including tree bark, moss, and wasp paper. Man-made materials such as metal and wire are also incorporated into the works. Youpa has been making masks for twenty-three years.
After completing her first plaster bandage mask in graduate school, she was overwhelmed with feelings of curiosity, wonder and power. “I was holding a cast of my own face, which invited me on a journey of reflection and inquiry”. While finishing her course work, she continued to create masks that reflected her personal emotions at that time. She found an enlivening form of connection to self that gave her freedom to externalize her mental processes and move forward. She spent the next few years making masks for various theater productions and dance performances before gradu- ating with her Masters of Arts degree in Psychology/Drama Therapy from the California Institute of Integral Studies in San Francisco. Material Cultures: Crossing Paths will adorn the walls of the Lobby Gallery. This collection features eleven new works in Brooke Atherton’s Palimpsest series. These works are large scale, fabric and mixed media canvases, used to explore traces of the past through layering. Palimpsests refer to anything having diverse layers or aspects beneath the surface. Just as the landscape evolves over time and ancient cities are built up with new architecture, her work relates to the history and identity of the elapsed. This series speaks to our individual heritage and is used as a starting point for conversations about how all of our paths cross at one point in time and space. Through this body of work, Brooke hopes to record both the general and intimate ways in which personal relationships and communities are formed. The canvases will be shown consecutively over two years, in three different venues and in three stages of completion.
The community is invited to participate in this evolving exhibit by writing on a fabric or paper hexagon, the place they most identify with when asked, “Where are you from?” For more information on how be a part of this community project and sew your place in history or if you would like to inspire youth, gain a working knowledge of artistic processes and experience teaching art in our community please contact Alissa Popken, Education Curator, at 587-9797 x-104. If you are a school administrator and would like to schedule a tour we are booking now. •
