A.R.T.S. is funded by a grant from The Cochran Family Fund of the Community Foundation Sonoma County and the Sonoma Plein Air Foundation, as well as by donations from Museum members and friends.

 

After eight successful years of sending artists into Sonoma classrooms to provide Sonoma Valley 4th- and 5th-graders an introduction to working with art media, The A.R.T.S. program is taking another step forward this year to design its curriculum based upon the Visual and Performing Arts Framework for California schools and concurrent SVMA exhibitions.

 

For the 2011 Arts Rewards The Student Program, SVMA's teaching artists are drawing inspiration from the upcoming exhibition, Eco Chic: Towards Sustainable Swedish Fashion. Students will be introduced to a variety of ecological art and fashion projects that simultaneously teach sustainability principles and the formal elements of design. SVMA partnered with Sasha Duerr, founder of Permacouture Institute and associate professor at CCA's textile program to further develop the practical skills of our teaching artists in this area with an intensive teacher workshop at the Museum on January 12. Prior to the class the teaching artists met as a group several times to exchange and develop ideas for projects. They brought their prototypes to the workshop to present to the group for constructive critique and refinement.