'Sackler Saturdays' Engage Youth

The usually quiet galleries of Harvard’s Arthur M. Sackler Museum resonate with the sounds of more than 280 children, laughing as they embrace the joy of creating new art. Most of these children have been here before—and have joined the ranks of a growing number of participants in the “Sackler Saturdays” program.

“Sackler Saturdays,” an increasingly popular educational program for local families, has exposed six- to eleven-year-old children to the museum’s collection three Saturday mornings a year since its creation in 2001. On the mornings of the program, children from the Cambridge area participate in games and activities centered around the theme of the day.

Professional storytellers, portrait artists, and calligraphers assist in the events, while twenty Harvard student volunteers interact with the children and oversee the weekly art projects that take place in the galleries themselves

“Kids don’t want to be lectured at,” says Lynne Stanton, Coordinator of Public Education for Harvard University Art Museums and the creator and principal administrator of the program.

With the most recent theme, “Unusual Faces from Faraway Places,” a local artist painted portraits of the children, who later explored different representations of faces in the museum’s collections and painted portraits of themselves and their families.

According to Stanton, the program was originally designed to attract local families who may be intimidated by the Sackler’s academically-oriented collection of Islamic, Asian, and later Indian art, the fourth largest in the nation.

“Local families think that Harvard is not for them to use,” says Stanton. “It is not known how accessible the place is.”

Although each Saturday includes hands-on games and activities, the focus of the program is to foster an appreciation for art, and more specifically, for the Sackler’s collection.

“We always return to the objects and collections themselves,” explains Christopher W. Platts ’06, president of the Sackler Saturdays Volunteers. According to Platts, the main focus of the volunteers is to educate in a fun, interactive way. “It is even an educational experience for the volunteers themselves, who learn about the museum’s collections,” he says.

The success of the program is evident in its steadily climbing number of attending families, which jumped from 79 to 300 over the past four years, due to advertising efforts, positive word of mouth, and what Stanton likes to call “a returning little groupie crowd.”

Due to limited space and resources, Stanton was forced to first cut the number of annual events from six to three and then to restrict the number of participating families to 300 by limiting advertising of the program. However, Stanton continues to target new, untapped minority communities who do not have access to art.

At the same time, “Sackler Saturdays” Treasurer Katherine A. Hasty ’07 has applied for more grant money from the Undergraduate Council to match the program’s growing financial needs, citing the council’s generosity in past fund-raising efforts.

Despite these financial pressures, Stanton will continue to waive the $6.50 general admissions fee to all participants. “I will hang on to my dying breath to keep it free,” Stanton says.