FULLERTON : Guides Help Make Art an Experience

Decked out in an Ozzy Osbourne T-shirt and baseball cap, Benjamin Topete gazed at a 400-year-old drawing of an Andean warrior at the Fullerton Museum Center. In the drawing, the fighter’s cape bears numerals. “Did the numbers represent anything on the robes?” asked Topete, 25.

“I think they’re just figural,” said Jean Fitzwater, who recently guided 15 continuing education students through the exhibit of an illustrated, Andean manuscript.

Fitzwater is a docent--a volunteer guide in the museum’s interactive tours, a program called Project Discovery. When the museum is closed to the public, the program brings in students and civic groups to view the exhibits and ask questions. Sometimes art projects are also included in the tour, which allows for a direct, physical and emotional response to the exhibits.

Preston Andres, 25, listened to Fitzwater explain that Andeans traditionally drew the sun on the left and the moon on the right in a picture. The sun was considered male and superior, she said.

Then Andres noticed that in one drawing, the “male” sun was on the inferior right side. He suggested this was done to make a point.

“It’s got many, many secret messages in it,” Fitzwater said, pointing out that scholars still argue about the document’s different levels of meaning.

The manuscript is probably the world’s earliest cartoon, with statements drawn as though they are coming out of each person’s mouth. The manuscript was written by a 16th-Century Andean named Guaman Poma de Ayala to the king of Spain to complain about abuse of the Andeans.

Curator Aimee Grodsky calls the center “a museum of ideas” because it has no fixed exhibit. Instead, provocative collections are sought from around the world.

“We really try to break that stodgy museum image,” she said. Grodsky says Project Discovery is the best forum for getting visitors to talk about the exhibits, since they don’t have to worry about disturbing daily visitors.

An exhibit on Mayan music will come to the museum this winter, followed next year by a collection of Haitian voodoo flags and an exhibit of art about money.

“A museum is a safe environment where you can ask really controversial questions,” explained Grodsky, who coordinates the docent program and recruits docents.

The docents are trained about each exhibit before they give tours and are also called to help at exhibit openings.

“It takes someone who wants to improve their own mind,” Fitzwater, 54, said. She recalled a recent exhibit on space programs and how much scientific material the docents had to learn. “But we learned it,” she said. “We were talking about cargo bays and everything.”

Prospective volunteers should contact the museum at (714) 738-6545.