Josue Galeano, 5, from Spring Park Elementary School, does imprint art on Tuesday, April 30, 2024, at The Cummer Museum with help from volunteer Alisha Wood. | Dan Scanlan, Jacksonville Today
Published on April 30, 2024 at 3:10 pm
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Josue Galeano’s first choice was a seashell, dipped in paint and pressed on paper.
Lined up with Spring Park Elementary School classmates next to a bronze statue of Athena in a garden along the St. Johns River, the 5-year-old boy next chose more items to print shapes on paper.
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Then came a star, dipped in three colors, as he joined hundreds of children from many local schools at the Cummer Museum of Art & Gardens’ Arts for All camp.
“I am just playing,” Josue said. “It’s just cool.”
“It’s very good,” added his mother, Rosario Orellana.
Each spring for 29 years, the museum on Riverside Avenue has opened its doors for a unique hands-on art program for exceptional education students. Held Tuesday and Wednesday at the museum, the camp offers multiple stations in galleries surrounded by historic paintings or in the English Garden, said Kim Kuta Dring, the museum’s learning and engagement director.
“This is an opportunity for not just students, but students with differing abilities, to get out of the classroom, get out of a medical environment and their households and be at a museum where they are welcomed,” Dring said. “Students really light up in their own way. For some, that is participating with energy, vigor and excitement in ways that they haven’t before or don’t do often. Some are verbal for the first time because of their experience with arts and gardens, or music that really invigorates them.”
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Volunteers from 14 companies and organizations helped about 300 children with disabilities over the two-day event at the museum. The students come from public and private schools in Duval County and surrounding communities.
Busloads of students unloaded at the main entrance, greeted by volunteers and a choice of drums, or foam tubes and drumskins to make rhythm. They walked past a rippled, polished steel wall sculpture in the lobby, to follow more volunteers to three art projects in galleries.
In one gallery, students from Sallye B. Mathis Elementary School tried their hand at basket weaving, pulling colored strips through small plastic berry containers, guided by volunteers as teachers and parents watched. As Raelyn Malone pulled a blue satin ribbon in and out of one basket, teacher Nellie Zirlott said her students eagerly awaited the chance to come to the Cummer and do some hands-on art.
“They are so excited they wanted to bring their lunch, but I’m like, we aren’t eating here,” Zirlott said. “But they are so excited, they were running to the bus. I think they are enjoying it, and they are loving it. I love to see their fine motor skills.”
The program, formerly called Very Special Arts, was initiated to increase access to arts and education for people with disabilities. It was originally thought to be the only hands-on art project for students with disabilities held in a museum. Some 200 students went to the first one.
Almost three decades later, the hands-on art project for students in museum galleries where paintings hang is still a rarity.
“They get to leave with really, really cool activities that they probably would not have participated in otherwise,” Dring said. “It is still rare. Museums certainly have done a great job of welcoming people of all abilities, but it is different to have artmaking experiences within the art galleries and in the gardens. We are one of the only organizations that we know of that are doing that.”
Live music was played for the children as they went from station to station, including folk music under a shade tree outside. Students all went to a live concert in the learning center before they moved into one of the art labs to imprint clay with patterns.
Zay,len Staten, 9, didn’t mince words.
“It’s fun,” the Broach School student said. “You can make anything else you want. I made an art project. I made a basket.”
Just over 2,000 more students will attend a virtual art program Thursday, beamed into their classrooms from the museum.
“They have all the supplies that they need,” Dring said. “They get to do some of the same art-making activities that the students who come on site get to engage in.”
Artwork done by some students will be displayed at the museum.
