The March General Meeting gave us plenty of ideas to inspire us as docents. Kayt Smith from the museum gave us a brief presentation on VTS and why it is important to the museum: 1. It is a student centered strategey, 2. It increases critical thinking, and 3. It creates a collaborative environment. Students build on their own life experiences to interact with the art. VTS aligns with the museum's core values of Lifting, Leading, Deliberate, Ensuring, Contributing, Inspiring, Fostering, Making and Nurturing. For example, in Deliberate listening and sharing we listen carefully to the students' sharing as we paraphrase back to them. Lifting up historically underrepresented voices and stories; we bring multi-cultural artwork into the museum and classrooms. Nurturing - Giving students a sense of belonging and feeling welcome to share their ideas without predjudice.

Joseph Coha shared some tools to help us reach out to our Spanish speaking students. His flyer gave us Spanish terms for colors - blanco, negro, rojo.. Que color ves? What color to you see. Thank you Joseph for some more tools for our docents to be successful in the classroom.

Stephanie Lam, our guest artist spoke about making her art and her insghts on art. "Today Painting is Dead." We have so many things now to distract us from art; video games, digital media,et. Where does painting fall in the specre of consumable content. What unique value does painting have? For Stephanie her art appreciation starts at bedtime reading from children's story books. It is the visual art in story books that make a profound impact on us when we are young." What unique value does painting have?

"Painting is Slow." Looking at paintings gives us an opportunity to slow down and concentrate on a static image. Reflecting, being in the present moment.

"Painting is Honest." It bears witniss to its own creation. You can see the marks the painter makes if you can get close to the image. You can see texture, colors. In her newer art she is allowing someof the lines to show through a let it be a beautiful part of the viewing experience.

"Painting is Intimate." You are sharing the same spaces as the artist. You have a different interpretation then the artist based on your own life experiences.

Stephanie shared some of the elements of art we were taught in our training which we understand to be helpful at looking at art. The design prinicples of Line: soft, hard, lost and found. Size: Can be a huge marker of what the artist wants you to pay attention to; for instance, the size of the elements or the size of the ;iece overall. Shapes, colors and value, "Value does the work but color gets the credit." Texture - actual or visual and Unity - Harmony.

Another helpful tool Stephanie suggested is creating your own feeling chart. This gives you more terms to express how we feel about the art we are viewing. A book was suggested "Atlas of the Heart," by Rene Brown which talks about the differences between guilt and shame.

Someone asked Stephanie how she gets her inspirations for her artwork. She said sometimes she sees something in her head and it will connect to something she is trying to process in her life. "Sort of like a visual journal." Then she will either use photos she has taken on her walks and manipulate them in Photoshop or sometimes draw them out or stage them.

If you are interested in seeing more of Stephanie's artwork here is her website: https://stephanielam.com/works

Here is the link for the book by Brene Brown - Atlas of The Heart

Thank you Joseph Coha for taking and sharing his notes of the meeting and putting together the document using Spanish terms for Elements of Art.