Marissa Reyes, who was born in Manila in the Philippines, says inclusion efforts at Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art start with families and move through traditional channels like school groups to more inventive outreach with social service agencies that help bring art to the people instead of people to the art. And while cultural outreach has been part of the museum's mission since its founding in 2011, museum staff learned a great deal more on that topic during the pandemic, she adds.
"Our outreach efforts certainly went beyond what was originally planned for 2020, as a response to the covid crisis in our community," says Reyes, who is chief learning and engagement officer for the museum. "With the support of local partner organizations, we mobilized staff to meet the needs of those most vulnerable in our community, distributing thousands of meals, house-cleaning supplies and personal-care kits. And we'll continue to do so with programs like ASAP."
ASAP -- the Arts and Social Impact Accelerator Program -- "cultivates partnerships with social service agencies and local artists in Northwest Arkansas," says its online description. "The partnerships will incubate ideas that creatively address social issues through collaboration, arts-based solutions, and socially engaged experiences."
"The agency acts as the subject matter expert on social issues to be addressed and relationship building with the communities they serve," the project outline continues. "The artist acts as a subject matter expert on art, socially engaged practice, and ways of cultivating community bonds.
"The museum is the connector between agencies, artists and communities."
This year's projects bring together Kalyn Fay Barnoski to work with the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences; theater artist Kholoud Sawaf to work with the Arkansas Coalition of Marshallese; and artist Octavio Logo to work with the Ozark Regional Transit Authority.
"I think from this year, needs will surface that we can address," says Reyes. "As much as we love to say this is a welcoming institution, this region is large, and we may not feel like the museum for everyone. How do we share art and creativity if they can't make it to the museum? We need many entry points. Our approach of being welcoming and inclusive and facilitating experiences must permeate all our different programs and reach beyond."
Reyes ticks off CB Babies, gallery time for infants from 3 to 24 months and their caregivers; Family Days, when the whole museum is filled with activities for children; and The Studio, "an artmaking space in the museum for both children and adults offering activities, games, books and spaces to create original works of art," as the first points of inclusion. Next come school programs, a traditional introduction to the arts for students of all ethnicities.
"Growing up in Northwest Arkansas, I gained access to the arts through school programming," says Antoinette Grajeda, editor-in-chief of Arkansas Soul, who is Mexican-American. "I remember my elementary school taking us on field trips to see plays and concerts at the Walton Arts Center. I believe those experiences helped foster my love of the arts as an adult. While the arts are important, it can be expensive when you're buying tickets for your entire family, so school programs are essential to providing access to kids like me whose families may not be able to afford those experiences on their own."
Reyes says Crystal Bridges is also launching "a new mobile arts program, developed in partnership with local libraries, that will bring regional artists, arts programming [and] storytelling workshops for youth and families in our region. Our goal is to meet people where they are, enhance arts participation and contribution to the quality of life for communities by providing experiences that promote social connection and belonging."
Reyes also includes "multilingual programs that connect English language learners with works of art, enhancing participants' language skills while engaging with American art. These literacy programs are a collaboration with several local literacy councils and adult education centers."
And last but certainly not least, Reyes says, is the presentation of the art in a context that "facilitates different conversations." As an example, she points to the first piece of art visitors to the Crystal Bridges galleries now see.
"We the People," a 2015 found-object sculpture by Nari Ward, depicts the first words of the Declaration of Independence in shoestrings.
"The hanging multicolored shoelaces nearly obscure the words, 'We the People,' encouraging viewers to stop, study and decipher the text," the label says. "Ward asks us to reconsider the phrase. Has its meaning changed? Who are 'the people'? How do these words apply to our society today?"
Part of that connection has to go back to before European settlers came to Northwest Arkansas.
"You can't have an American art museum without including the Indigenous people who were making art here long before Europeans arrived," says Charlotte Buchanan, director of the Museum of Native American History in Bentonville. That's why she was so pleased when MONAH's founder, David Bogle, and Alice Walton, founder of Crystal Bridges Museum of American Art, put their heads together to come up with an exhibit the two facilities would share. "Companion Species," which closed May 24, was late opening at MONAH because of the covid pandemic, but it still had plenty of time to bring new visitors to the art and history museum and new awareness to those visitors, Buchanan says.
"Of course we hoped that visitors to each museum will be inspired to visit the other, but beyond that, it is enormously helpful for MONAH for folks to see that the 'big guy' -- Crystal Bridges -- respects MONAH enough to collaborate with us on an equal footing," says storyteller Gayle Ross, a member of the Cherokee Nation and a frequent consultant for MONAH. Crystal Bridges acknowledges it exists on Caddo, Quapaw and Osage land, but "land acknowledgements, by their very nature, cast Native peoples in an historical light, a relic of the past rather than the vibrant contemporary tribal nations we are," Ross says. So it's vital that museums "always, always make sure your interpretations portray Native peoples as living, breathing, vital and contemporary parts of the national mosaic."
If "Companion Species" encouraged Crystal Bridges patrons to include Native Americans in their thinking about art -- and helped to encourage Native Americans that American art is their art -- it's just one piece of a puzzle that pictures all kinds of people at the Bentonville art museum.
