Each year, the Bruce Museum in Greenwich hosts thousands of students enrolled in dozens of schools from across the greater community. Much more than a day away from school, the Bruce serves as a classroom annex, albeit one chock-full of wonders from the intersecting worlds of art and science.
The Museum’s Educators offer a range of programs and workshops that feature inquiry-based learning, hands-on activities, and tie-ins to school curricula. Guided tours and thematic workshops are designed to enhance a student’s understanding of scientific phenomena and artistic concepts, enabling them to make important connections between the sciences and humanities.
A recent visit by a group of students from Stamford High School brings the Museum’s role as an educational institution, and its approach to partnering with local schools, into focus.
“The Bruce is a smaller museum, but the variety is awesome and the varying shows are a real eye-opener for our students,” says Paul Cusano, chair of Stamford High’s Fine Art Department and the AP Studio Arts teacher. “The natural history section of the collection, with its birds and other objects, makes a great setting for observational studies, which is part of the AP students’ coursework. Colleges look for that in students’ portfolios.”
Cusano’s 13 AP Studio Arts students were joined by students from an IB Visual Arts class taught by Module Downer. A component of Stamford High's International Baccalaureate Diploma Program, the two-year IB course is one of seven courses that students take as part of the internationally renowned and rigorous diploma program. It features an inquiry-based curriculum, with an emphasis on writing and critical thinking.
Mrs. Downer’s IB students, all juniors, are required to make several visits to museums and conduct gallery walks as a part of their curriculum. “The fact that the Bruce offers four distinctly different exhibitions gave our students a wide variety of artwork to examine and consider in their comparative study where they must research at least two artists with different contexts and use that as a foundation in creating their artwork,” says Downer. “Seeing original artwork in person provides students with an interactive experience with the art itself.”
The Stamford students began their tour of the Bruce in the Bantle Lecture Gallery, where the exhibition, A Continuous Thread: Navajo Weaving Traditions is on view through November 25.
Featuring a dozen pieces from the Museum’s Native American ethnographic collection – some of which have never been publicly exhibited – the exhibition traces the history of the Navajo weaving tradition from the earliest Mexican-inspired Saltillo serapes, c. 1880, to mid-20th century pictorial rugs. Each piece is an extraordinary example of artistic creativity and technical execution, Coordinator of Interpretative Services Diana Rafferty told the students in her interactive tour of the installation.
“It was inspiring to watch the Museum Educators engage our students in meaningful dialogue about art, which gave them experience using art vocabulary outside of the classroom,” says Downer. “Diana’s guided tour will come in handy as we do more critiques and museum visits.”
For Paul Cusano, the Navajo textiles also provide a tangible link that connects his AP art students to the real world. “It was fascinating to learn how over time the weavings transitioned from ‘homespun,’ functional textiles to more modern designs using brighter, more synthetic materials,” he explains. “For the Navajo, it was a business decision, with artists following the market not just to make art for tourist visitors, but a living for their families. Art students don’t always get to address the more mercantile aspect of the subject they’re studying.”
The Museum’s major fall show, ReTooled: Highlights from the Hechinger Collection, “was really enlightening and encourages critical and creative thinking in a similar way,” says Cusano.
“We have testing that prompts students to define creativity, and ReTooled is custom-fit for allowing students to explore the change process, to see how tools can take on new meaning,” says Cusano.
The third exhibition on the tour was “right in our wheelhouse” for both groups of Stamford students. Expressionism in Print: The Early Works of Richard Haas, 1957-64, which closed on October 21, featured a selection of woodcuts and prints produced early in Haas’s career that, in many ways, encapsulates the artist’s graphic evolution.
Wild Bees: Photographs by Paula Sharp and Ross Eatmanmay be the Museum’s smallest current exhibition by space if not subject, but it had an oversized impact on the Stamford students.
The exhibition, on display through November 11 in the Science Gallery, features exquisite color photographs of native bees in their natural habitats, along with an exploration of their varied lifestyles. The photographs are part of an ongoing wild bee project undertaken by photojournalist and writer Paula Sharp and nature photographer Ross Eatman, who began documenting wild bees inhabiting New York's Rockefeller State Park Preserve and neighboring Stone Barns Center for Food and Agriculture in 2014. Their lenses capture in beautiful detail the tremendous variety of shapes, colors and sizes of the insects. The essential role bees play in our planet’s health also comes into view.
“One subject we’re working on in AP Studio Art is microphotography, getting close to things,” says Cusano. “We loved the photos, and the fact that the exhibit touches on larger themes is important. Conservation is a subject for students to reflect on. The show has artful photos, but they also give students a jumping in point to tie that art back to larger issues, the health of our environment being chief among them.”
Soon after the Stamford students completed their tour of the Bruce, the teachers were already brainstorming their next class visit with Corinne Flax, Manager of School and Community Partnerships. She mentioned the hands-on potential of the upcoming exhibition Pressed for Time, which will focus on botanical collecting in Connecticut from 1885 – 1944, through the presentation of beautiful and fragile, historical herbarium sheets from the Museum’s collection. Other new shows and learning opportunities await, from miniature sculptures to cartoon art to sharks.
“I’m always open to doing something different, using our collections and inquiry-based STEAM programs to complement and enrich a school’s day-to-day practice, of any grade level.”
Flax has one further tool in her kit, and for some schools it makes all the difference. Thanks to generous support from GIVE: The Steven & Alexandra Cohen Foundation, the Bruce is able to offer bus scholarships that enable schools to have their transportation costs covered by the Museum, as well as having their onsite program fees waived.
“It’s nice to know that the Bruce has grant opportunities for students who may not be able to
afford this field trip,” says Downer, who learned about the scholarship after coordinating a PD for Visual Arts Teachers as the District Content Leader for Visual Art in the district. “Not every institution has that level of support from the community, and we’re grateful that the Bruce has that capacity and the interest to share with school districts. It’s a win-win for both students and teachers – and community.”
For more information about the Museum-based or BruceMobile Outreach Educational Programs, please visit brucemuseum.org or contact Corinne Flax at cflax@brucemuseum.org or 203-413-6742.