Teachers and the Dallas Museum of Art

As the McDermott Graduate Teaching Programs Intern, my work at the Dallas Museum of Art has included co-teaching over 8 Teacher Workshops this year.  My experience teaching teachers began with the treasures of Tutankhamun’s tomb last fall and have concluded with the technology teacher workshops this spring.  Though my teaching role in the tech workshops has been comparatively minimal, they have both excited and motivated me.  The DMA’s all day Sound Design Teacher Workshop on April 25^th began with a fervor of philosophical discussion and concluded with numerous personal translations of visual art into sound pieces.  With 10 participating teachers and 4 instructors we collaborated through a spectrum of perspectives including DMA education staff, UTD Sound Design professor Dr. Frank Dufour, and an array of local teachers. 

We began our day in the DMA’s Center for Creative Connections Tech Lab where Dr. Frank Dufour breached the daunting subject of Sound Design by introducing sound as an extension of touch explaining the literal process of ear drum perception, and illuminating the fact that before the invention of the phonograph sound always necessitated a visual counterpart (the performance of music).  Before the museum opened to the public we scuttled into the empty galleries in an attempt to translate Claude-Joseph Vernet’s Mountain Landscape with Approaching Storm from a (painted) landscape into a soundscape.  Frank diverted initial intimidation by urging us to respond to the painting through movement, which would in turn provoke sound.

After lunch Frank gave tutorials on a variety of Sound Design technology, introducing teachers to free online sound libraries as well as Audacity, a software tool for editing sound.  With their confidence built, teachers embarked into their own projects of creating an original sound piece inspired by a work of art in the DMA’s collections.  Spending the afternoon between the galleries and the Tech Lab, teachers combined their visual memory of artworks with their imaginative interpretations on how that would translate into sound. 

The presentation of these sound projects sparked a buzz of proud electricity, as even Frank expressed how impressed he was with the work produced by the morning’s beginners.  In our lively concluding discussion teachers articulated the desire to apply both the skills they learned as well as this fresh approach to looking at works of art into their classroom teaching.  By encouraging further engagement with works of art, channeling attention on a deeper level and exercising tonal memory, this Saturday at the DMA was quite inspiring and rejuvenating.