Recognizing the importance of easy access to museums and art education for young children of all backgrounds, Clare and Tish Murray founded cARTie, a mobile art museum that travels throughout Connecticut. The nonprofit places a great emphasis on inclusivity and in serving the underprivileged.
“The purpose behind starting cARTie has been and it continues to be bringing the museum field trip experience to life for our youngest neighbors, who otherwise do not have access to powerful, museum-based learning opportunities,” said Clare Murray, executive director of cARTie.
The idea for cARTie originated in 2019, and just one year later the museum became a 501(c)(3) organization. One of the inspirations for cARTie was the work of Victor D”™Amico, founding director of education at the Museum of Modern Art, who aspired to provide art education to wider audiences, doing so through various novel means including the 1952 NBC television show “Through the Enchanted Gate” and the Children”™s Art Caravan in 1969, a mobile art workshop that travelled to schools unable to provide art facilities or programs for students.
The biggest edge the nonprofit art museum has over traditional museums is that it takes the form of a bus, allowing it to travel to interested schools, farmers”™ markets, and other venues, not unlike the Children”™s Art Caravan of old.
“The inequities in Connecticut are such that one town and another town 20 minutes apart ”” the experiences, the access can be really, drastically different,” Murray said. “And so, leveraging this idea of a mobile art museum bus, this vehicle for arts engagement, was really important at the time and continues to be important.”
cARTie takes an inclusive approach to its presentations, with an aim to amplify the voices of people of color and offer a welcoming space for anyone, regardless of gender, religion or identity. The organization also takes this approach with its internal structure.
“When it comes to our board and our staff, we devote time, money and energy to bimonthly DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) trainings and workshops with nationally renowned DEI expert and President-Elect of the National Art Education Association Dr. Wanda Knight,” Murray said. “We are diligent about training our staff adequately to work with diverse populations. We seek out opportunities to work with students from diverse backgrounds, and we are committed to this mission of bridging inequities in education and arts access across the state.”
To ensure that it can reach as many kids as possible, cARTie performs fundraising on its own end so that schools with few resources may still access the program. cARTie has found support and funding from organizations like the Daniel E. Offutt III Charitable Trust, the Cornelia T. Bailey Foundation, the Community Foundation for Greater New Haven and the Connecticut Office of the Arts, as well as individual donors.
Murray theorized that early elementary school-aged children are at an especially important developmental stage, and so cARTie”™s museum goers skew younger.
“Our curriculum brings together some of the best practices in early childhood museum education, and I think it”™s really uniquely able to introduce young children to the museum environment in a welcoming way,” Murray said.
The mobile museum endeavors to craft a curriculum that encourages children to think critically and creatively through the lens of the world of art. The children for their express enthusiastic praise for cARTie, according to Murray.
“We”™ve received overwhelmingly positive feedback from kids and adults,” she said. “It stimulates this kind of curiosity, wonder, excitement that we just don”™t see every day.”
cARTie will hold its Fall Open House just outside the Westport Museum for History and Culture at 25 Avery Place on Sept. 18. The open house will last from 3 p.m. to 5 p.m. and will include paint and sip sessions, museum tours, live music, a student artist award ceremony and a silent auction. cARTie will also make appearances in Fairfield County at the Trumbull Farmer”™s Market on Oct. 6 and the Bruce Museum Festival in Greenwich on Oct. 8.
