---

Volume 2, Issue 2                                    University of Houston

---

Culture -- to go

Blaffer's 'Mobile Art Quest' will bring art education to Houston-area schools

By Miriam A. Garcia
Staff Writer

In the same way that mobile clinics provide health care to communities, the Blaffer Gallery's Mobile Art Quest will reach out to give children a taste of art education.

With financial assistance from the Texas Commission for the Arts and guidance from the Blaffer Gallery advisory board, local artists under the direction of Jeff Poss turned a trailer into a traveling art museum. The museum -- the first of its kind in Houston -- will tour area elementary schools next spring.

The gallery's Lisa Hernández said the Art Quest will serve area schools that do not have art programs.

"When TAAS scores fall, the first thing that is cut in the budget is field trips, so there is no budget for field trips to museums," Hernández said.

Children will learn art concepts, produce 3-D paintings and create their own art at the three-room, 15-by-45-foot trailer, Hernández said. The first area in the trailer, the "concept room," explains the steps artists take to create art.

The second area, or "action room," is designed to help students "feel art." There, children will play with oversized props as part of learning to be creative, Hernández said.

In the last room, children will create their own 3-D masterpiece and take pictures of it to make stickers, she said.

"There is nothing else like this," Hernández said.

Art Quest is part of the Blaffer Gallery's education program, which serves about 8,000 school children yearly. The program includes classroom visits, museum tours and art activities in 24 school districts, including traditionally overlooked inner-city neighborhoods near the University, Hernández said.
 

Send comments to dcnews@mail.uh.edu.