For Docents, It’s All in the Appreciation

Maybe if I enrolled in one of the fourth- or fifth-grade classes in the Desert Sands Unified School District, I would be able to enjoy abstract art and give up one of my red-barn-in-the-rain pictures.

As a principal in the school in the Palm Springs district said to Betty Rinnig, “I’ve learned more about abstract art in 15 minutes than I have in 45 years.”

Betty Rinnig is a docent in the Palm Springs Desert Museum’s art appreciation course called “Making Friends With Art.” The museum has been conducting classes for the fourth and fifth grades in Palm Springs for six years. The program was put together by a knowledgeable lady, Janice Lyle, director of art education for the museum.

Rinnig says the schoolchildren are 9, 10, and 11 years old and are delighted to be facing real pictures--not only abstracts, but art of all eras--for the first time. “Many of them have never seen a picture except for a calendar on the wall. In a museum one day, a little boy hauled his father over to me and said, ‘This is the art lady I’m learning from.’ It was a wonderful feeling to know that the little boy was enjoying the sessions and telling his parents about them.”

The La Quinta Arts League will start its own program in the fall in the Desert Sands district, which reaches to Indio. The Arts League is a wonder because it was started in 1990, under the auspices of the 10-year-old La Quinta Arts Foundation, and already has more than 200 members.

It is from these women that the new docent group will be drawn. They will need 24 and they already have 21 and four alternates. The docents will go through a six-week training period and work in eight schools. The La Quinta program will reach 1,500 children.

It is not teaching, they stress. Their aim is to acquaint the kids with art.

Jean Garland, who founded the La Quinta Arts League, says the goal is “to help the children learn to develop and apply creative and visual skills. Visual literacy is becoming essential for today’s children to succeed.”

There is no pass or fail. The program is to give the children the pure joy of looking at art, line and color.

Classes last for 12 weeks and meet once a week for 30 to 45 minutes. The docents run the classes as discussion groups, not lectures. There is one program on color, getting the kids to talk about what different colors do. For example, red is hot; it can mean danger, excitement, speed. Betty Rinnig said that in the color class the docents use a picture that shows a bright gold No. 5 on a brilliant red background. It is an abstract painted from a poem about fire engine No. 5.

The children don’t feel embarrassed. Everyone’s right. Betty says, “Someone may say ‘yuck’ and someone else may love the picture. They’re both right.”

One class is on Picasso and all his styles. The docents go through the traditional masters, to Impressionism, and they even have a place for Grandma Moses.

The La Quinta Arts League docents will work with 150 picture reproductions and talk about each painting. What they stress is the ability to look.

The classes are not given by rote. Just like art and artists, each teacher will have her own style.

Lyle will teach docent training classes every Wednesday for six weeks starting in November. The docents will begin in the schools in February, after a January filled with watching classes in the Palm Springs district, where kids have had the program for years.

All of the women in the existing Palm Springs programs stress the sense of joy they get from teaching the classes. They say it is deeply rewarding.

The main thrust of the program is to show the kids the excitement and joy of art. Children are neither puzzled nor confused by abstract art. They simply enjoy the colors and the forms.