Madison Museum of Fine Art, Inc.

• K-12 School-Museum Partnerships

• Museum-Family Partnerships

• Corporation-Museum Partnerships

• Community-Museum Partnerships

• Adult Education

The history of visual art is much more than the history of beauty. It records man’s intuitive, authentic, and emotional response to the prevailing scientific, social, psychological, linguistic, and political dynamics of the times, When we develop the intellectual skills, habits, and confidence to engage in dialogue about visual art, we can see beyond superficial aesthetics to discover what the artist intended to communicate. We discover uniquely personal and transforming truths that advance our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development for the benefit of mankind.

Sadly, many people lack geographic proximity to original fine works of art or feel awkward asking for assistance. This can be true for even the most “learned” physicians, professors, lawyers, and school teachers.

To reduce many real and perceived barriers to visual art history education, the Madison Museum of Fine Art provides endearing “lively” interactive learning experiences designed to:

• increase sensitivity to visual art,

• refine the power of visual analysis,

• teach the great traditions of visual art,

• develop critical assessments of diverse works,

• enhance appreciation for the permanent collection, and

• and demonstrate how visual art history can inform and enrich contemporary life

in a way that inspires life long learning. The hope is that visitors will interact with visual art masters in thought provoking ways to nourish the mind, strengthen the heart, and refresh spirit.

More than a passive container of fine art and artifacts, the Madison Museum of Fine Art applies five teaching principles to surprise and delight our visitors and bring art history to life. These include intimacy, innovation, imagination, vitality, and a commitment to the liberal arts. Occasion after occasion, person by person, the Museum strives to provide sufficient time, proximity, and opportunity to nurture fresh, insightful, transforming, and confidence building art history experiences. To increase receptivity and retention, we stimulate all the senses. We leverage the powers of story and image to communicate the rich content of visual masterpieces. And to establish context, relevance, and accessibility, the Museum highlights key inter-relationships among liberal arts disciplines. By simultaneously playing these marionette-like strings, the Museum can successfully:

• transport viewers through time and space to promote ‘dialogue’ between viewer and artist,

• present master artists and their works as not yet finished with this world,

• demonstrate the socio, political, and economic contexts that artists influenced in their life times,

• identify the aspects of contemporary life they inform today, and

• inspire people to live in a more mindful, compassionate, constructive way for the benefit of mankind.

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K-12 SCHOOL-MUSEUM PARTNERSHIP

Transform Lives for Life-long Learning

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"We spent time discussing the colors and objects within the watercolor by Salvador Dali. I led the discussion in Spanish and the students responded in the language too. It was amazing to see the children using the language outside of the classroom. It also increased the relevancy of the curriculum to the students’ lives. The children were able to see the achievement of the Spanish speaking community in a setting so close to home. The Madison Museum of Fine Art is a perfect place to experience a new culture without having to cross the ocean." Kelly Seagraves, Morgan County Elementary School Spanish Teacher

The Madison Museum of Fine Art offers a sensational K-12 extra-classroom setting to teach and reinforce key primary and secondary liberal arts subjects including foreign Language,science, visual Art,history (American, European, Asian, and African), math, English and the Language Arts in a way that inspires life-long learning. To augment the use of reproductions in the classroom, the Museum offers tangible objects and authentic works of art as a “toolbox of curriculum materials.” Many teachers find that the direct museum experience stimulates the senses for heightened perception, sharpens critical thinking skills, and increases retention. It also promotes self-directed education for life long learning and is a vehicle for building tolerance and transforming lives for the benefit of mankind.

Download Kelly Seagraves' "Third Grade Spanish Class" paper.

Download Tracie Constantino's Museum Visit Lessons for K-12 titled >"Articulating Aesthetic Understanding Through Art Making" located at http://ijea.asu.edu/v8n1/

To discuss your educational objectives, discover ways to integrate the direct museum experience into your classroom curriculum, or report obstacles in visiting the Madison Museum of Fine Art, call 706-453-4530 or email us today at mbechtell@prodigy.net. And bring your students more than once a year. Educational experts report that the effectiveness of curriculum-coordinated multiple museum visits greatly surpasses the novelty of single hit and run field trips. Multiple museum visits demystify the museum experience, build comfort with objects and images, increase depth of concentration for higher order thinking skills, and increase appreciation for the permanent collection.

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MUSEUM-FAMILY PARTNERSHIPS

Make Your Own “Museum of Memories”

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INSERT MUSEUM COLORING BOOK

Laughter is a miracle medicine and a gift from God. And every family deserves to share joy and laughter with loved ones.

The Madison Museum of Fine Art offers families a free, safe, serene, and endearing, recreational setting to help your family build your own “museum of memories.” So, take your family and freinds on a mini-vacation to the Museum and make memories that will refresh, repair, revitalize, and remain for generations to come.

And don't forget these Art Facts for Your Family. DID YOU KNOW?

* Students who study the arts perform 30 % better than those who do not.

* Students with four years of arts education on average score 100 points higher on their SAT scores.

And young people who participate in the arts for at least 3 hours for 3 days a week for at least one full year are:

* 4 times more likely to be recognized for academic achievement

* 3 times more likely to be elected to a class office within their school

* 4 times more likely to participate in a math or science fair

* 3 times more likely to win an award for school attendance

* 4 times more likely to win an award for writing an essay or poem

So… Bring Your Children to the Madison Museum of Fine Art. A friendly docent will greet you at the door and offer whatever assistance you need. The Museum is designed to provide sufficient time and opportunity for your family to enjoy insightful, transforming, and confidence building art history experiences. So, walk through the Museum. Breathe in with your eyes. Listen with your heart. And let famous visual art masters transform your life. Take the time to:

• Enjoy recreational time with loved ones

• Visit the sculpture garden

• Shop the Museum Store

• Relax in the film corner

• Find the 66 million year old sparkling ammonite fossil

• Use the objects on display to reinforce school subjects

• Inspire young ones to develop critical thinking skills

• Model self-directed education for life long learning

• Smile and laugh

And bring your family more than once! Make the Madison Museum of Fine Art a habit! Repeat visits demystify the museum experience, build comfort with objects and images, increase sensitivity to art, and enhance the quality of life!If you or a loved one is sad or discouraged, tired or bored, stressed or in need of spiritual refreshment, then visit the Madison Museum of Fine Art! Consider a Family-Museum Partnership with

• Family Performances, Film, and Lectures,

• Family Volunteer Activities, and

• High School Docent Opportunities.

To discuss your family needs or report obstacles in visiting the Madison Museum of Fine Art, call 706-342-8320 or email us today at mbechtell@prodigy.net. Remember, laughter is the best medicine, a miracle medicine! We may be too sick to go to work, but we are rarely too sick to go on vacation. So stop! Take a break. Take a mini-vacation to the Madison Museum of Fine Art, and get refreshed! Let the Madison Museum of Fine Art help you and your family build a “museum of memories.” It’s FREE!



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CORPORATION-MUSEUM PARTNERSHIPS

Artistic flow is more than pretty, it’s profitable!

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The Information Age with rapid data processing has renewed attention to art and the aesthetic experience.
And attention to other human conditions like taste, smell, joy, frustration, beauty, and relaxation are guiding innovation with great speed. For this reason, savvy managers are fusing economic flow with artistic flow. They work to create a business culture that nurtures innovation and aesthetic design. The Madison Museum of Fine Art specializes in the history of art, innovation, and the creative process. So let us help you and your team identify, unlock, and leverage the creative potential throughout your organization. Fostering innovation is not easy. It demands a culture that continually empowers people to create value by acting on their imagination. It takes courage to identify, communicate, and transcend the limiting factors which are often “un-discussable” in company meetings. Yet giving employees license to identify, mirror, or influence something beautiful, profound, or disturbing can leverage aesthetic opportunities for profit, growth, and gain. So contact the Museum today! Learn how we can help you:

• Accelerate creativity and innovation

• Provide employee benefits that awaken the senses, refresh the spirit, and improve team focus,

• Learn the principles and elements of good design.

• Find meaning in work

• Strive for peak performances

• Develop critical thinking skills,
• Promote life long learning
and
• Increase aesthetic awareness to succeed in an increasingly visual and sensual information age.

To learn more about a Museum-Corporation Partnership, email mbechtell@prodigy.net or call 706-453-4530.



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Community-Museum Collaboration

The Healing Arts

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Throughout history, works of visual art, poetry, and music have offered hope and healing. Today, scientific studies report that art heals by changing a person's physiology and attitude from stress to relaxation, from fear to creativity, and from paralysis to motion. And expets observe that nature imagery in particular can

• reduce anxiety, relax patients, and increase responsiveness to medical treatment,

• reduce systolic blood pressure and pulse,

• redirect negative thoughts,

• decrease boredom, and

• reduce the intake of pain medication and length of hospital stay.

• reduce feelings of abandonment.

So contact the Madison Museum of Fine Art to apply tthe healing properties of art to

• Awaken the senses,

• Refresh the spirit,

• Reduce loneliness,

• Improve focus, and

• Promote life long learning

If you are a business, senior group, health care organization, church, or other institution, ask about our Community-Museum Partnerships. Let us customize a visual art program for you on location at the Museum or on your company premises. Call 706-453-4530 or Email us at mbechtell@prodigy.net for more information.



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Adult Education

Do Something Nice for Yourself

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Many adults want to learn more about visual art and art history, to see beyond the immediate colors, shapes, textures, or images of a canvas or sculpture and discover what the artist intended to communicate with the brush or their hands. Do you want to gain increased confidence to engage in dialogue about art, yet, feel shy or awkward to ask for assistance?

The Madison Museum of Fine Art offers an elightening and refreshing atmosphere to build visual literacy. It provides a safe social setting apart from the outside world that gives you license to travel inward to find peace, joy, and spiritual refreshment. When we take the time to look, see, and reflect, we often discover uniquely personal and transforming truths that advance our intellectual, emotional, and spiritual development for the benefit of mankind.

So do something nice for yourself. Treat yourself to lectures,films, and social events. Or take a more active role and become a docent or Volunteer Committee Leader. And don't miss our Adult Educational Program Series that bring art history to life:

• CONVERSATIONS WITH GENIUS. Let Vincent Van Gogh, Max Ernst, Salvador Dali, Eugene Delacroix and other visual art masters tell in their own words why they are not yet finished with this world.

• OBSERVATIONS ON THE PERMANENT COLLECTION. Let our academic specialists explain the mysteries of the Museum’s 66 million year old ammonite fossil, share intriguing facts about our collection of Asian art and artifacts dating from the 3rd century, or summarize the innovative radon research of anarchist and Nobel Prize winner Frederic Juliot-Currie depicted in Picasso’s signed and numbered lithograph in the Museum’s permanent collection.

• AFFAIRS OF THE ‘ART. Discover passionate romances and political intrigues that influenced visual art geniuses in history, and explore the gender, race, political, and power issues that changed their lives.

• ART AND MUSIC. Attend musical performances in a relaxed and artful setting.

• ART AND THE LAW. Learn famous art related court cases and the raging disputes among art experts of the 19th to 21st centuries including the trials of American art master James Abbott McNeil Whistler v. British architect and art critic John Ruskin, the modern Italian art genius Brancusi v. the United States Government, and contemporary Cuban artist DuBraque vs. Scotty’s Building Supply Company.

• WHAT IS ART? Witness a round table of art experts debate “real” art including such questions as “Is photography art? Is ‘Installation art’ real art? Where is the line between art and pornography? Or let us engage your employees in a reading of the acclaimed three man play “Art” by Yazmina Reza.”

Or just come by for a visit! Call 706-453-4530 or Email us at mbechtell@prodigy.net for more information.