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Art in (and out of) a Box for Kids in the Classroom Over a period of three years, the Education Committee has evolved a program — titled “Art in a Box” — to assist art teachers in introducing their students to Charles Demuth and his work. “Art in a Box” will bear its first fruit in a student exhibition, resulting from the program, during November and December at the Foundation. The curriculum originated in cooperation with Millersville University, under the direction of Dr. Barbara Bensur when in the spring of 2000 her senior art education majors undertook a project based on seven topics relating to Demuth, his art, his era, and his Lancaster. A pilot program was introduced at the Price Elementary School in Lancaster. Detailed lesson plans and a body of student artwork subsequently emerged from it. The Foundation Director, Corinne Woodcock then co-authored with Dr. Bensur “Community Connections: The Influence of Place on Charles Demuth’s Work.” It was published in the Art Education Journal, in March 2001. Foundation intern Alix Davis then refined the Millersville student work for three specific lessons. This resulted in a second pilot program, organized in cooperation with Lancaster city art teacher, Juan Rodriguez. Focusing on Demuth’s architectural work, Mr. Rodriguez shepherded several classes of third graders at Carter and McCrae Elementary School in Lancaster City, and he included a field trip to the Demuth Museum. The students’ responses were as enthusiastic as they were genuine, and the art they themselves produced as a result of the program indicated their grasp of something of Demuth’s vision. (That he’d once done a painting of their actual school building did not fail to impress them either.) By this time firmly established as “Art in a Box,” the program became the basis for a Lancaster Country Foun-dation grant, supplemented with funding from the Ressler Mill Foundation, to provide the technology and means to create “Art” from the actual “Box” or kit to be offered to Lancaster Country art teachers during the 2002-2003 school year. The initial offering covers three topics: “Symbolic Self-Portraits,” “Pre-cisionist Architectural Drawings,” and “Word Portraits.” The actual contents of an “Art in a Box” will include curriculum information, reproductions of Demuth’s art, slides, and an introduction to the artist and his family. The original charge to the Education Committee, which began under the chairmanship of Carole LeFever and continued under its current chairman, Peggy Neff, was to give life to the story of Charles Demuth and his art for the county’s school children. That charge will result in an exhibition, opening November 23 and running to the end of the year, offering an opportunity to experience the fruits of that vision.
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