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First-graders get primer for Butler visit
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Butler Museum docent Terry Gallagher (right) taught a group of Dobbins first-graders about art concepts on April 17. Gallagher began with the entrance of the museum and urged the students to consider the architecture a work of art as well.
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Neighbors | Sarah Foor .Butler Museum docent Terry Gallagher (right) taught Dobbins first-graders about art on April 17, including painting styles like still-life, seascape, landscape, genre, and shown here, portrait.
By SARAH FOOR
Dobbins Elementary first-graders prepared for its big trip to the Butler Museum in Youngstown by learning some basic concepts to use during their exploration.
Volunteer docents from Butler visited Dobbins on April 17 to tell the students what to expect during their visit to the museum on April 24. Terry Gallagher spoke to the first-graders in Kim Aikens’ classroom.
“When you visit next week, you should keep in mind that everything at the Butler is art. Make sure to look at the sculptures at the entrance, as well as the skylight and marble floors once you walk inside,” Gallagher urged.
The docent told the children about the history of the museum and the recent addition of the Butler’s technology center, which features lasers, lights, and digital art to appeal to guests like the Dobbins students.
Gallagher asked the students to do more than walk by a piece of art.
“The more you look at a painting or sculpture, the more you will see. We have a guest at the Butler that spends weeks looking at certain paintings, and each time, he tells us that he saw something he didn’t the week before,” she shared.
Gallagher told the students about styles of paintings like portrait, still-life, seascape, landscape and genre, and said that paintings should have color, shape, size and texture.
Aikens said she is enjoying watching her students learn with the Butler Museum.
“Along with today’s presentation, they’re learning vocabulary words and really becoming part of the process. When we visit next week, they’ll get to do their own still-lives in the museum and be creative in that setting. It’s great to see the kids get involved in art this way,” she said.