To keep up with an increasing demand for educational programming and opportunities for families and children, Dixon Gallery and Gardens recently opened its new Liz and Tommy Farnsworth Education Building.
With the museum’s first expansion in 33 years, the educational facility now boasts 6,000 square feet of indoor and outdoor classrooms, office space for the entire education department, storage space, and an interactive gallery.
Under the guidance of Margarita Sandino, the Dixon’s director of education, the museum began a revitalization in 2007, expanding its educational programming from two classes to 28. However, the Leatherman Workroom, satellite locations, and gardens they were using for classroom space could not keep up with the growth, so museum leaders went to work on a plan to build a more appropriate learning space. With chair members Liz and Tommy Farnsworth Jr., a plan was formed to begin an expansion, which would become the fourth phase of the museum’s master plan renovation project.
“Liz and I have wanted to do something meaningful for Dixon Gallery and Gardens,” Tommy Farnsworth Jr. said via an official press release. “In discussions with Dixon leadership about possible future building projects, when the topic of an educational and teaching facility came up, Liz and I began to think about this facility as a giving opportunity.”
Students of the museum’s resident classes, as well as visiting school and tour groups, are able to reap the benefits of the new building’s large studio, two medium-sized indoor classrooms, greenhouse, and outdoor learning space that together merge horticultural and fine art programming.
Museum visitors will get views of the renovated south lawn by trailing a path connecting the Stout Gallery to a public entrance to the education facility. Here, guests will see an acre of interactive outdoor learning areas that covers previously uncultivated ground surrounding the building.
Sandino says her favorite part of this new learning area is the view of one of the last-standing elm trees in Memphis. “We call him Elmer,” she says. “We have been doing lessons about the elm tree for forever. But because this was just a wild garden before, nobody would see it. But now it’s all right here for everyone to see.”
Dixon Gallery and Gardens employs a number of ongoing and special programs for families and children of all ages. “Children as young as 12 months old can experience our sensory gardens through our drop-in Sprouts program,” says Sandino. “As kids get older, we start to patch over science and the arts, and the garden makes a great background for that.”
Children ages 2 to 4 can move on to the Mini Masters program in which they can explore shapes, textures, and colors through hands-on art activities and story times.
The next step up, Kaleidoscope Club for children ages 5 to 9, makes use of a rotating curriculum that involves art, horticulture, or literature to facilitate a way for children to use their imaginations and inspire creativity while learning critical thinking skills.
In the museum’s “-ology” series, children ages 10 to 13 learn more advanced art lessons and techniques throughout three sessions using a variety of media that could include graphite, watercolor, or colored pencil. April’s “-ology” segment, Plein-air-ology, taught children the art of French Impressionism in an outdoor setting.
Teens can participate in ongoing programs such as Saturday Sketch.
“A group can come in and say, ‘We’d like to sketch,’ and we provide sketching materials for everybody,” says Sandino. “We have done this for many middle and high school groups already.”
Kids in the Garden, which educates children ages 7 to 10 on horticulture and flora, and Girl Scout Badge workshops, which combine painting and gardening lessons, will use the building’s outside classrooms.
Families can experience the new studio spaces and gardens together at the quarterly Family Days and at the monthly Family Studio days.
“We are very excited about the educational programming this new building can open up,” says Sandino. She says the museum will spend the next year prototyping and experimenting with new programs for the education building, and we may expect to see some of these changesin 2020.
Julia Baker, a second-generation journalist, is editorial assistant for Memphis Parent and a University of Memphis junior.