Vincent and Me: What a Great Docent Does

Over the holidays, I visited the Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and as always in museums, found myself lurking around galleries,  watching how people interact with each other and with the art.  It was a weekday, and there were lots of school groups.  I came into one gallery and saw Van Gogh's Irises at the end of the room.  I watched one docent with a school group.  Okay, I thought, but not great.  That group moved on, and another docent, who you see at the top of the post,  shepherded her group in, sat them down,  and began a conversation.   What I heard and saw integrated so many things that museum educators and interpreters strive for,  that I'll try to recreate it here (based on some rapidly scribbled notes on my museum map).

First, the docent had the group look closely at the painting.  What did they see?  "Flowers"  "How many different kinds of flowers?"  "What color are the flowers?"  "Oh, there's a white one over there that's different."     And with each question, she reinforced the answer and asked another question to go deeper.  The kids had nametags on, and she used every child's name when she called on them or they answered.  "You're a group with great imaginations!"

But after discussing the flowers she made a switch I didn't understand at first--telling the students (who were 8 years old or so) about the difference between a portrait and a landscape.   A portrait a picture of a person;  a landscape with trees or sky or flowers.  And, she continued, "some people think this is a portrait, a self-portrait, by the artist Vincent Van Gogh, and some people think it's a landscape.   The artist was lonely--so if it's a portrait,  where is he?"   One of the students quickly guesses that Van Gogh is the white iris, "because he stands out, because he's alone."     But maybe, says another, "You don't have to be alone.  Maybe another flower will come along and pick him."  In just a few moments, the conversation had gone from merely spotting colors to empathy,  to the idea that paintings can be about feelings, that they can be metaphors for other things, and to a bit of understanding about how an artist expresses himself.

And then she expanded the idea of portraits further.  "I want you to pretend that you are someone who wants your portrait painted,  What would you be?"   Hands went up,  and one by one,  she called students up to pose for their portrait.  "I would be a butterfly,"  starts one shyly.  By the docent's own active movements,  she encouraged deeper thinking,  "Would you have your wings spread like this?  or be resting on a flower like this? What colors would you be?"  and so on,  always asking questions that required imaginative answers and getting them,  getting the students to use both their minds and their bodies.

She noticed that only girls were volunteering. How about a boy?  After some giggling and shoving in the back, it was clear that no boys were going to volunteer.  Okay, she said, moving around to where the boys were.  "Let's imagine that we have a boy.  What shall he be?"  "A prince, said one student, and the conversation continued about a portrait of a boy.   After this, she wraps up, and says, "Time to move on, but before we leave this room, I'm going to just stop for a minute and show you my favorite painting, one with a secret."

I was sitting on a bench with a couple mothers and asked the age of the students.  Unqueried,  the mom next to me said, nodding at the docent, "She's great, isn't she?  I've watched some of the others and they're not as exciting!"   I totally agree and here's my quick list of great things she did right.

• Ask great questions.  Start with easy ones and build to more challenging ones.
• Accept differing interpretations (from art historians and students)
• Understand that emotions, even difficult ones, are a part of every child's life and that art can make a strong emotional connection.
• Use several different kinds of multiple intelligences.  There was something here for visual learners, for mathematical learners (counting the kinds of flowers),  for interpersonal and intrapersonal learners and for kinesthetic learners.
• Be adaptable.  I don't know if boys are reluctant to participate in every school group, but in this one, she didn't force them,  but physically moved back near them and made sure they were included in the experience.
• Be excited.  She loved art and you could tell.  She also loved kids and you could tell that too.

Thanks, unknown docent, for ending my museum-visiting year with such inspiration!

What I've Learned from Working with a For-Profit Company

Tomorrow, I head off for another trip to Rome working with Context Travel, a company that's been a client for the past year.  It seems like a great time to share what I've learned from working with them.  Context is based in Philadelphia and they "provide an in-depth alternative to traditional tours. We are a network of architects, historians, art historians, and other specialists who organize walks in 21 cities around the world—and counting."  Actually, I think the number is at 25 or so by now,  all of which except the newest, Amsterdam, I've visited in the past year.  (and by the way, if you're traveling, check out their walks!)

My consulting with them has been framed around ways to develop and share tools for better walks for both docent managers and docents (the scholars who give the walks).   But as you might expect, although the work--professional development--has many similarities to the work I do with museums,  I think the way the company operates provides some useful lessons for all of us in the non-profit world.  Here, in no particular order,  a few things I've learned from the owners, Paul Bennett and Lani Bevacqua, and their tremendous staff working in Philadelphia,  London, Paris, Rome, Berlin, Istanbul and Shanghai.

Storytelling matters in every aspect of work that engages the public.  Like museums, Context walks are, at their best,  magnetic experiences.  That means it's not just a litany of facts, but a clear, compelling story.  But it's not just the walks that are stories--it's every part of the work. Everyone on staff is asked to be a storyteller, in all sorts of ways--from tweet-sized storytelling to longer blog posts.  What would happen if we asked everyone in our museums to think the same way?

Everybody can pitch in but everybody can solve problems.  From the rotating 24 hour emergency phone to too many other tasks to mention,  staff feel free to ask, across the globe, for help when they need it.  But everyone also knows that they are empowered to solve problems as they arise.

Make a decision and move forward.  My first real work was at the staff retreat last year and at dinner the first night, Lani asked what I thought of it.  I ventured some suggestions that I thought would help focus the work.  The next day those were tried out.  Not the next month, not after a committee studied them,  not the next fiscal year.  The next day.  It's been great to work with a client who listens to an idea (some considerably more complicated than meeting management) and says, "okay.  let's do it."

Always be scanning for the newest, free technologies that can make your life easier. When I began with the company, we Skyped;  now it's Google Hangout.  Why the change?  I suspect it's because it's easier to put in the calendar and click right through.  Still free.  But if a new tool doesn't work for you, move on.  Don't continue to invest time and money (remember, the tool is free--don't make it costly).

Focus on what really matters.  The company pays attention to lots of metrics,  but the one that impresses me the most is client happiness.  I'd love to see more museums think about not just what our visitors and our communities might be learning,  but how happy--not just satisfied, but how happy-- we make them.

And finally, as befits the company's Roman roots,  I've learned that any meeting is made better by beginning with espresso or ending with an aperitivo.  Thanks Paul, Lani, Carolyn, Whitney, Sara, Liz, Petulia, Lily, Courtney, Genevieve, Sophie, Ceylan, Ramona, Natalie, Jessica and Martina for a great year of learning around the globe!

Reflections of an Art Museum Docent

In this guest post, Tegan Kehoe shares her ongoing adventures as a volunteer docent at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston.  I found her honest assessment of the joys--and the challenges--illuminating reading as I consider projects that work to provide docents with new skills and approaches.  Thanks Tegan, for taking us on your own learning journey.

I titled my first guest post here, about being a volunteer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, “Learning to Talk About Art.” One of the things I have learned in several months there is that only about a third of the questions I get from visitors are about art. From my experience in other front-of-the-house museum jobs, I knew that about a third of questions would be directional or logistical:  “Where are the restrooms?” “When are the tours?” The part that I didn't predict is that because the Gardner has such a compelling founding story – it was created by one very wealthy woman with a passion for art of all kinds, and her will dictates that the arrangement of the objects never be changed – many visitors want to know more about her and about the construction of the museum. This is a blessing for a docent, because it is easier to learn and share Mrs. Gardner's story than to learn about the thousands of artworks on display.

Another discovery is that I find it hard to remember to use Visual Thinking Strategies, a technique in which a guide asks questions to encourage visitors to think about their own reaction to a piece of art. Typical VTS questioning starts with “What's going on in this picture?” but the technique in its typical form is designed for formal interactions, like a tour or a class. At the Gardner, volunteers are encouraged to use questions inspired by Visual Thinking Strategies in their conversations with visitors. However, while the training on this was quite good, I feel I could benefit from a follow-up training or discussion to help me figure out what this actually means in the galleries.

What I've learned is that asking these types of questions is counter-intuitive for me. When a visitor asks me about a piece of art, it's usually an information question. My impulse is either to answer, or, if I don't know the answer, tell them where else they could get that information. Often I'll add what I do know about the piece, even when I don't have the information they want. After I've done that, the conversation feels complete unless the visitor wants to continue it. My goal for myself is to remember to follow up my responses with a question like, “What drew you to this piece in particular?” From there, we might have the kind of conversation Visual Thinking Strategies is designed to provoke – thoughtful, and empowering the viewer to trust their own understanding of the art.

The Gardner has over a hundred volunteers, which has several implications for the volunteer experience itself. We sign up for our own shifts using Volgistics, a tool for online scheduling. It's easy to use, and as far as I know, it works pretty well for ensuring that there are between two and five of us on each shift. There's a small volunteer lounge with water, tea, lockers, and books and resources on the museum. We have a meeting fifteen minutes before each shift in the lounge. Having that space is great for settling in before the shift starts and getting updates on events at the museum. Additionally, having a space just for volunteers helps me feel like a part of the Gardner.

Another benefit of such a large volunteer program is that the Gardner welcomes volunteers who can only do two shifts of three hours each per month, and may not have a regular schedule. As a young professional with an odd work schedule, I would not be able to come every week at the same time. However, it does seem that the volunteers who can make a more regular commitment get more of the volunteer experience as it is advertised in the information sessions. They have the chance to get into a rhythm, to learn the museum's collection more quickly and perhaps more deeply. They get to know each other, and form a community of volunteers who attend lectures and concerts together, at the museum and beyond.

I, on the other hand, have yet to find time to attend one of the enrichment lectures offered to the volunteers. Volunteers get out of the program what they put into it, and this isn't necessarily in the museum's control.  Of course, most of the regulars of are retirees, and have the luxury of ample free time. For me, the main rewards of volunteering are spending time in those gorgeous, quirky galleries, and getting to share what I am learning about the museum's story and the art there with the visitors.

Photo: Mrs. Gardner on a ladder on the second or third floor. From a series of construction photos, ca. 1900.  The Gardner Museum, www.gardnermuseum.org.

My Day as a Docent: What Do You Think?

Last month, guest blogger Tegan Kehoe (above) wrote about her training to become a docent at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum and the conceptual shift from a history to an art perspective.  She's back, to share her experience of her very first docent shift, just a week after the Gardner's grand re-opening.  We'd love to hear your perspectives on working directly with visitors--comment away!

My first shift as a volunteer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum was on a Saturday afternoon, just over a week after the historic museum re-opened to debut its new wing. The excited returning visitors and curious new visitors gave the museum an incredible energy. When I arrived, the line to the admissions desk was out the front door.

While all volunteers, new and old, get into the swing of things with the reopening, the museum is asking us to come a half-hour early for a pre-shift meeting. We went over where we would be stationed and other tidbits of useful information. It was a relaxed meeting that helped me learn the names of my fellow volunteers and reassured me that I knew what I was doing.

I spent my first hour of my shift on the second floor of the historic building, surrounded by paintings by the Old Masters, furniture from Renaissance Italy, sculpture from ancient Rome, and more. The Gardner is not an ordinary museum. The art is arranged the way the museum’s founder and patron, Isabella Stewart Gardner, felt the pieces were most inspiring, and very little is labeled. Visitors often need help finding the rack of laminated room guides or determining which guide corresponds with which wall. I was asked a question every few minutes. Excited and nervous, I focused on correctly and helpfully answering visitors’ questions rather than on using the techniques I was trained on. I did ask a few families, “How are you enjoying your visit today?” and that got conversation going, but for the most part, it was busy enough that it seemed both overwhelming and impractical to engaging visitors in deep, thoughtful conversation.

My second hour was in the new wing’s Living Room, a glass-walled space for informal learning, reflection, and discussion. The space is inspired by Mrs. Gardner's tradition of hospitality, and has couches, bookshelves full of books on all topics (although art certainly predominates!), a timeline of the museum's history, a touch-screen panel with more information, and even two birdcages with finches like the one Mrs. Gardner kept. There were two volunteers stationed in the living room, which I liked. I got to know my fellow volunteer, there were enough visitors to keep us both busy, and having two of us meant we had time for have longer, deeper conversations with the visitors.

I spoke with visitors who made the Living Room their first stop and wanted to know what else they should see and how to get there, and also with visitors who had already explored the historic building. My favorite conversation was with a woman who was impressed by the sheer size of the early Renaissance tapestries in the Tapestry Room. 

The last hour of my shift, I was in the new special exhibitions area, a spacious, three-story room on the second floor of the new wing.  It's a beautiful space, but contemporary art is more hit-or-miss with me than earlier art, and I felt unsure of what to do with myself while greeting visitors there.

At one point, a woman asked me, “Why is the ceiling so high?” I explained that the ceiling was actually adjustable, and for this particular installation, it was at the highest of three possible levels.
“But the art doesn't go nearly that high... there's so much white space,” she said.
“This is an exhibit of an individual artist's work, so it was the decision of the artist,” I said. 
After she left, I realized I had missed an opportunity to ask her, “Why do you think she did that?” or, “What do you think about having all that space there?”

Later, another woman asked me, “What was on the artist's mind when she made these sculptures? I read the pamphlet and I still don’t get it.”
“Well, what do they make you think of?” I asked.
“I don't know.” She paused. “What about you?”
We were standing by a drum that had a small painted tile and a handful of bobby pins on its head. I was glad, because it was the only sculpture in the room that evoked something specific for me.
“This one reminds me of doing college theater, with all of the props and supplies mingled together in the green room,” I offered. 

Then her husband, who had been looking out of the enormous windows, spoke up. “There was this bar I used to go to, you know, the kind with the dueling pianos. This guy named Eddy was ninety-one, and he had been working there for seventy years. His job was to stand between the pianos with thimbles on his fingers, holding a metal tray with coins on it, and he tapped out the beat like that. I think that's what it would sound like if you hit the drum and the bobby pins bounced.”

“Huh,” said the woman, sounding baffled, but more amused than frustrated “You have the green room, and you have Eddy, but what do I have?” 
She looked at me. Her husband moved over to one of the eight foot by ten foot paintings.
“Something to think about between now and your next visit?” I said.
“Yeah, I guess so!” 

Did I help that woman feel empowered to form her own opinions about art? I'm not sure. I do think I planted a seed to get her thinking, though, and I know that the three of us had an enjoyable, meaningful conversation.

The Gardner embraces the model of having many volunteers who make a small monthly time commitment. I wouldn't be able to fit it in if they required more each month, but I'm happy to commit to the two years they ask volunteers to stay in the program. I will be working about two shifts a month. After I have gained more experience there, I'll write again to reflect on what I have learned talking about art with the Gardner visitors.

 And, related to my last post, check out the Gardner Museum's thoughtful mission statement here. 

Images, top to bottom:
Tegan Kehoe in front of the Gardner Museum, by Matt Kamm
Living Room and Gallery by Kidsturk on Flickr
Hallway connector, by Tegan Kehoe

Learning to Talk About Art

Welcome to another guest blogger!   Tegan Kehoe is an emerging museum professional who's also a volunteer docent at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum as it reopens, with a wonderful new wing, on January 19.  This is the first of three posts from Tegan going inside the docent process from learning to doing.  As professionals, we spend lots of time talking about docents and what they should/could/might be doing.  Here's her inside view.

As a museum professional, I believe that working directly with visitors should be a lifelong practice for me.  I had thought for a long time that I might want to volunteer at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum, a small, beautiful Boston institution full of art from all time periods. Until recently, I had too many other things going on in my life, including being a tour guide at two history museums, but this fall, after starting a desk job, I realized now might be the time. It’s also a very exciting time to be at the Gardner, because they just completed a new wing, opening to the public on January 19. They recruited a large group of new volunteers, and I applied just in time. In November and December, I attended a series of trainings to get oriented to the museum’s story, the collection, and how to help visitors have a great experience.

While I’m excited to get involved at the Gardner, I’m a historian, and there’s a voice in my head asking,  “What do I know about art?”  We aren’t expected to be encyclopedias -- in fact, the most important part of our role is being a friendly, welcoming presence in the galleries -- but I want to help visitors make meaning of what they see. Thankfully, the Gardner volunteer trainings include a few very useful kernels of museum education theory.

At the trainings, I was re-introduced to John Falk’s theory that museum visitors are influenced by their own conception of themselves and their reasons for attending a museum. There are Experience Seekers, who want to see and experience something new, especially a landmark or a well-loved destination, Facilitators, who bring their children or out-of-town relatives to a museum to give them a good experience, and three other archetypes that describe a visitor’s reason for being there.  

I think it’s a very useful way to think about visitors. There is no value judgment in acknowledging that visitors want different things. A part of me feels that in an ideal world, every visitor would be hungry to learn, learn, learn, and maybe stop and gaze at a painting or artifact in wonder. In reality, it’s not my place to say this is what visitors should want, and it’s not always what I want when I’m the visitor. Museums are for the public, and we do visitors a better service by trying to help them get what they want out of the experience. Still, I believe that it’s key to take advantage of teachable moments -- just to do it in a way that’s appropriate for the individual.

Another of the trainings introduced us to Visual ThinkingStrategies, an art education tool that uses questions. To demonstrate the process, a Gardner staff member showed us an image of a painting not in the museum’s collection, and asked us, “What’s going on in this picture?” A man sat at an office desk reading some papers, while a woman stood at the filing cabinet. Several people noted that something in the room seemed not quite right. Our leader asked, “What do you see that makes you say that?” and a young woman said the walls were oddly blank, as if the office’s occupants were not really settled there. An older woman replied that she didn’t find the blank walls odd at all, given the time period of the piece. As the leader asked, “What more can we find?” we went deeper into the mood of the room. We all agreed it was nighttime. I saw that we seemed to be looking down from above, as we could see the top of the door frame and the cabinet and the top of the figures’ heads. It gave a feeling of distance from the subjects.

As we talked, I was surprised to realize I kept waiting for the “reveal” moment, when we would be told the work’s title, year, and painter. It wasn’t coming.* VTS is about affirming the viewer’s ability to have a high-quality experience with the art, and meaningful ideas about it, whether or not they know anything about it. The system is designed for classes, rather than informal interactions, and volunteers aren’t asked to practice VTS strictly, just to use it as a guide. I like this model, because I think it will help me engage with visitors. Before I know much about the collection, it will give me something to say, and later on, it will save me from the temptation to just rattle off my favorite facts about a work. Still, I wonder how I will do at keeping Visual Thinking Strategies in mind when I volunteer. Will it feel awkward? Formulaic? Or will it blend seamlessly with asking visitors how they are enjoying the Gardner?

While I think I’ll start out a little out of my comfort zone, it helps to think about the whole visitor experience, not just what knowledge I can impart. I’m really excited to do this. I feel privileged to become a part of a team that sets high standards for itself with regard to visitor experience. It is said that Gardner arranged the pieces with the intention of inspiring the viewer, and I expect to be repeatedly inspired. I hope that over time, I will continually build my skills at helping to share this inspiration with museum guests.

My first shift will be on Sunday afternoon after the debut of the new wing. I will be posting again to let you all know how it goes!

*For your gratification, if you’re feeling the same way I was, it was Edward Hopper’s 1940 painting Office at Night. I later looked it up online.

Tegan Kehoe is a Boston-based emerging museum professional and historian, whose many professional interests include free-choice learning, nonprofit management, and local history. Her own blog, Cambridge Considered, [cambridgeconsidered.blogspot.com] covers the history of Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is also the sometimes-leader of a nascent Stitch and Bitch (knitting and other crafts club) for history and museum professionals in the Boston area. 

Top:  Banner outside the Gardner Museum by Dave Gilbert eye2eye on Flickr
Bottom:  Office at Night,  Edward Hopper