FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Launching a New Art Ark

Crocker Art Museum Celebrates 25 Years of Outreach with a High-Tech Installation

September 10, 2004 – Sacramento, Calif. – The Crocker Art Museum’s mobile outreach program, the Art Ark, will launch a new installation of artwork and activities in celebration of its 25 th anniversary. With the beginning of its traveling season this fall, the Art Ark’s theme, Art & Technology: Paintbrushes to Pixels, explores how technology is changing the way people understand and represent the world through art. This installation will visit schools in the Sacramento County region and bring art education to more than 18,000 K-8 th grade students annually.

The high-tech theme includes a new display of artwork and interactive centers, and its development marks a unique collaboration for the Crocker, involving well-known artists including Stuart Allen, Chris Daubert and C. W. Hurni; and Gizmo Art Production Inc., a San Francisco-based exhibition design firm. With major support from the MetLife Foundation, the Museum invited five local artists to design experiential artwork to teach children the traditional elements of art, along with new artistic processes utilizing the latest technology. The result is a multi-sensory, high-tech experience, where students view and create art using a variety of media: editing and printing digital photos, triggering lights inside a walk-in “kaleidoscope,” composing a piece of illustrated music on a computer, and using a polarized microscope to magnify colorful images from chemicals.

Unique to the Sacramento area, the Art Ark is distinguished in the nation as one of the first mobile art museums, and one of the few focusing on hands-on learning. Developed in 1980 as a means for schools to maintain art education after the initiation of Proposition 13, the Art Ark has served nearly 350,000 students and more than 400 schools.

Williams Scotsman provides ongoing support by maintaining the structure, and the Art Ark receives additional support from GenCorp Foundation, RBC Dain Rauscher, Teichert Foundation, the Louise Hess Foundation of the Sacramento Region Community Foundation and the Sacramento Metropolitan Arts Commission.

• On the road since 1980, the Crocker’s Art Ark is one of the oldest mobile museum outreach programs operating in the United States.
• The Art Ark is unique among mobile museum outreach programs because it combines art-viewing with art-making activities. Students on the Art Ark not only look at artwork, they experience interactive, hands-on learning and connect their creations to larger visual arts concepts.
• The Art Ark serves approximately 32 schools and 540 classes each year. An average Art Ark stay at each school is 5.5 days.
• 68% of schools served are in Sacramento County, other counties served include: El Dorado, Yolo, Placer, Nevada, Yuba, Colusa, Solano, San Joaquin and Sutter.
• The Ark is housed in a mobile office building and measures 12’ x 50’ x 9’ tall. It has an HVAC system, gallery lighting, an alarm and a wheelchair lift.
• The Art Ark was initiated after the passage of Proposition 13 drastically affected funding for art and music programs in public schools. It is designed to provide opportunities for students with little or no exposure to the fine arts. To date it has served nearly 350,000 students, teachers and community members.
• The latest Art Ark installation is a collaboration between the Museum and five artists: Jim Piskoti, Rachel Clarke, Chris Daubert, Joy Olsen Surbey and Jessi Martin.
• The Art Ark experience has always involved bringing original art objects to students. Artists currently represented in the Gallery on the Art Ark include: Mel Smothers, Stuart Allen, Norma Beirne, Ariel Carman, C. W. Hurni, Nanette Roe and Terry Berlier.
• The Art Ark thematic installations change every two to three years. Past themes include: Potpourri: Victorian Art and Style (84-85), Places & Spaces: The Built Environment (86-87), Ceramic Arts: Elements in Common (88-90), Portraits (94-97), and Cross-Cultural Arts (99-01).
• Fees charged to participating schools cover approximately one-third to one-half of the actual costs.

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The Crocker Art Museum was founded in 1885 and continues as the leading art institution for the California Capital Region and Central Valley. The Museum offers a diverse spectrum of special exhibitions, events and programs to augment its collections of Californian, European and Asian artworks. The Crocker is located at 216 O Street in downtown Sacramento. Museum hours are 10 a.m. – 5 p.m., Tuesday – Sunday; Thursday until 9 p.m. For more information on exhibits and events call (916) 264-5423 or visit crockerartmuseum.org.

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Media Contact: LeAnne R. Ruzzamenti
Media: (916) 264-1963
Mobile : (916) 213-9402
Public: (916) 264-5423
216 O Street
Sacramento, CA 95814
www.crockerartmuseum.org