ALBRIGHT-KNOX
Teaming up to expose students to art
Cajoling students to spend a few dollars for a field trip to the Albright- Knox Art Gallery, and prodding the School Board to gas up the bus has never been one of Patricia Ryan’s favorite things.
But the Attica Central High School visual arts teacher always gets it done because seeing one of the world’s great art collections up close can make a lasting impression on children from rural Wyoming County. It’s often their first visit to a city, let alone a museum, she said.
The routine will be much easier for Ryan and other educators under “Art’scool,” a partnership announced Friday by the Albright and BlueCross BlueShield of Western New York.
The health insurance provider will cover the cost of gallery visits for schoolchildren across the region, a gesture the Albright-Knox believes will more than double — to 25,000 a year — the number of youngsters exposed to its extensive array of modern and contemporary works.
At a news conference announcing the arrangement, gallery Director Louis Grachos observed that the first exposure to art for many has been through school programs.
Conceding that the focus on children “has slipped over the years,” Grachos said the Albright Knox means to reverse the trend with an audience development strategy designed to keep children and families coming back year after year.
“By engaging children today, we build audiences of tomorrow,” he said. “When children explore the gallery’s vast resources, they also enhance their critical thinking, problem-solving and visual literacy skills.”
Besides paying for field trips, “Art’scool” will include online sign-up via a new Web site — h t t p : / / a r tscool. albrightknox.org, enhanced curriculum development for teachers and classroom lessons geared to return visits in the same school year. The gallery staff will be beefed up to handle more teacher requests and class tours and to engage families.
BlueCross BlueShield views the program as a chance to take the gallery, “already a leader in visual arts education, to the next level of instructional outreach,” said Alphonso O’Neil-White, president and CEO.
Flanking Grachos and O’Neil- White were members of Ryan’s senior art class at Attica High who coined the “Art’scool” name, and grade schoolers from the city’s Dr. Lydia T. Wright School of Excellence, formerly School 89, which BlueCross BlueShield “adopted” for the program.
