LSU Museum of Art Hosts Neighborhood Art Program | Louisiana Inspired

Not everyone has the means to visit an art museum, so the LSU Museum of Art brings art to them.

That’s been one of the museum’s missions since 2012, when it launched the Neighborhood Arts Project over the summer. The goal is to engage children from underprivileged neighborhoods in Baton Rouge in free arts activities.

But not all participants are children.

“We’ve also been able to reach out to senior centers,” said education and public programs manager Callie Smith. “So we’re reaching people of all ages.”

The program is designed to foster creativity among participants while laying a foundation for lifelong learning. It also seeks to open doors to arts-related opportunities that are typically unavailable to children living below the poverty line.

As in previous summers, this year’s Neighborhood Arts event was funded by the museum in partnership with several city organizations.

Art activities were inspired by current exhibitions at the museum. This summer, participants created space-themed pieces to coincide with the museum’s exhibition, “Fierce Planets: Work from the Studio Art Quilt Associates,” which runs through July 28.

An added bonus to the experience were visits from Aaron Ryan of LSU’s Department of Physics and Astronomy, who operates the university’s Mobile Astronomy Resource System Truck, which provided informal science education events featuring telescopes, a portable digital planetarium, interactive experiments, and science demonstrations.

Smith said some of the activities were inspired by the exhibit, “Cherished: The Art of Clementine Hunter,” which was scheduled to open July 11 but has been postponed. That didn’t stop campers from learning more about Louisiana folk artist Clementine Hunter, though.

The Neighborhood Arts Project visited 16 locations in June and July, serving 455 participants in June alone.

“These are participants of all ages,” Smith said. “Our data shows that the numbers served in previous years have varied due to factors such as the number of weeks the program was in operation, the locations visited, staffing, and COVID. We’ve seen numbers as high as 2,000 participants in previous summers. By the end of this year’s program, we will have offered 20 activity sessions.”

The museum provides all the supplies for the classes, which are taught by two artists.

“Historically, the education manager has led the sessions with a volunteer, but this is the first year we’ve had two paid, part-time art teachers,” Smith said. “One is an LSU graduate student and the other is an art teacher. I also go out and help out.”

Most of the gatherings took place outdoors, under the museum’s orange canopy, at locations selected in partnership with churches, community centers, BREC, and the East Baton Rouge Library System.

While the program has been successful in engaging these communities with art, the museum is now exploring the possibility of expanding it in other ways.

“It’s such a successful program, and because we go to the same places repeatedly, maybe two or three times,” Smith said. “I think it would be really cool if the communities are interested, and if it’s feasible, to bring those groups to the museum for at least one of those visits.”

This means that participants can actually see and experience the exhibitions that inspired their artistic summer activities.

Last fall, the museum received a $24,000 grant from the Art Bridges Program in Bentonville, Arkansas, to fund transportation for people from underprivileged communities to attend the museum’s Free First Sunday programs throughout the year.

The foundation is a national nonprofit arts organization founded by philanthropist Alice Walton. In 2023, it launched an “Access for All” initiative, providing $40 million in funding to 64 museums nationwide to expand access to museums nationwide.

In the meantime, Smith is gathering feedback from the museum’s partners and teaching artists about what’s working and what’s not in the program and whether it’s possible to expand the Neighborhood Arts Program to the museum.

“I think it would be great to incorporate a museum visit during the summer because these kids tend to go to the same places every day of the week,” Smith said. “So it could be a fun way to do something different.”

Smith added that another possible way to expand the program could be to offer it during school holidays.

“That’s something we haven’t looked at yet, but I do think it could be a supportive idea to offer the program at times of the year when schools are closed,” she said.

For now, the focus is on engaging neighborhood children with art activities in the hopes of developing a lifelong interest in art. Well, again, not just kids.

“We serve children, teens, adults, seniors,” Smith said. “This is a timeless circle and we want to engage them all in art.”