Taft Museum

The Taft Museum of Art will use its grant to fund “Artists Reaching Classrooms (ARC),” an award-winning and life-changing outreach program that engages 280 advanced high school art students from twelve schools. Over the course of an academic year, each student makes a minimum of seven contacts, including a classroom program overview by docents, classroom visits by artists, student trips to artists’ studios, and interactive docent-led tours of the Taft. ARC culminates in a month-long professionally installed exhibition of students’ original work inspired by some aspect of their ARC experience. Competitive scholarships are awarded for further education. Museum founders Charles and Anna Taft’s commitment to encouraging contemporary artists to use the Taft’s collection as inspiration served as the model for this program.