 and welcome to In the Studio today. I'm your host, Alex Silva-Satter. And as you can see, I'm not actually in our television studio. I'm here at our office studio. So today we're gonna be talking with the Davis School Arts Foundation and its board president, Lorraine Vischer. And the Davis School Arts Foundation is coming up on its 40th anniversary, I believe. Is that correct, Lorraine? Yes, that is correct. We are coming up on our 40th. And you were founded by Patricia Hershberger. Yes. And at what point did you become involved and join the board and why? Well, that's a real good question. I joined the board about six years ago, a little less than that. But I was benefiting from DSA, well, before that because I was a elementary school teacher here in Davis for 20 years and benefited from their grants. So I was very well aware of them all during my career. I'm not retired. And upon my retirement, I got asked to join the board. So I was here, I was president. So it was kind of a swift indoctrination, but I very much am happy to be here and be serving in this way. All right. And could you tell us about the purpose of the Davis School Arts Foundation for those who don't know? Well, that's a really good question because actually we're kind of in a point of transition like so many places are. But originally, we started during a really difficult time. It was proposition 13, it had been passed. Taxes, tax revenue had dropped. The schools didn't have as much money and what suffers in those times are the arts. So local citizens right here in Davis got together and put together donations and raised money and formed the Davis School Arts Foundation creating the Endowment Fund that we have that's kept us afloat and partnered with school district to have a little bit of matching funds with the school district and created the foundation which provides provided grants to classrooms, to school sites, to elementary school choirs and some funding to the junior high and senior high as well. So we've been providing those grants for 40 years and we started out small and our grants generally now run each year we're giving you up between $30,000 to $40,000 in combination with the school district. Wow, and what sorts of things do these grants fund? They fund all kinds of things. Of course, as I mentioned the school choirs and elementary school, they also fund teachers applied for the grants and they tell us what they wanna use the money for. So it's been used for pottery, it's been used for dance, it's been used for ballet, folklorical instruction, it's been and dance classes for kids, it's been used for watercolors, just a really wide variety of things, calligraphy and oftentimes the teachers will bring in a local artist who leads these lessons with the kids and provides the instruction and we also give money to each school site and that at the school site, the teacher and the teachers and the principals can decide together how they wanna use that money. Sometimes it's used to buy art materials that are available to all teachers at the school site. Sometimes it's used to bring in some kind of an art program that the school whole school benefits from or some kind of an art project with an artist that the whole school benefits from. So that's another way that they get used. So it's a pretty broad way that it's distributed. Excellent. Why don't we mention a little bit about why arts are so important and why they tend to get cut first always you always hear like, oh, well, we gotta cut something, let's cut arts. Why is that bad and why are arts so important? Well, art has been proven. Art, music, fine arts, performing arts, all of those have been proven to be really instrumental in the brain development of children. Really helps with developing connections, with making associations, with organizing thinking patterns. It also calms the nervous system, helps kids to focus better. It develops math skills, language skills, verbal skills. I mean, it really hits all the areas of development for kids in a way that almost no other subject does. And it's really, really valuable, especially for younger children, which is why the Davis School Arts Foundation focuses mostly on the elementary schools. But it's just crucial for kids and not to mention the psychological value of the arts and how it can improve self-esteem. It can, as I've said, calm the whole system. It's really extremely valuable and extremely undervalued in our society. One of the notes I saw about the importance of the art was that it said that art is not about the right answer but a personal response. And I thought that was a great observation because it's not a mechanical thing, it's a creative thing. It's so true. And responding to art develops in kids the ability to, first of all, feel when it's about the response and not about the judgment of their artwork, but it's about the kids' response to art and to their art and to the art of others. It develops the child's self-confidence and it teaches them empathy and it teaches them awareness of others and being able to put themselves in other people's places. It gives them a sense of belonging that somebody else has painted something or dramatized something that expresses their feelings. And it allows them to understand the feelings of others. So, yeah, the response is what really matters. It's not the judgment. Excellent. Let's now talk about this new, so COVID's come along, of course, and disrupted everything. Yeah. And art's being a sort of a physical, in most cases, a physical, strong physical component. It's not something that can be taught through the screen necessarily in the way that maybe mathematics or other things can be. So could you tell us a little bit about this art boxes idea that you came up with and then we'll get more into it? Sure. If you don't mind, I'll back up just a little bit on that. Sure. Right before COVID hit, the Davis School Arts Foundation was looking at doing some strategic planning and doing some changes in the way that we operate. Being around 40 years, it's time to take a look and see how we can better serve our community and in this current time. And that was just beginning for us when COVID hit. We are really thankful for that endowment that we have because that has managed us to stay, managed for us to stay afloat. And we are not rolling in money, but at least we have a base that we can work with. And we knew we wanted to give grants this year and we looked around and we said, what can we do? We could just give the money to the schools evenly and see what they can do with it. But then the art center came to us with this idea of the art kits and the whole board just responded immediately that this was a way we could put art materials in the hands of a pretty good number of kids in the school district. And that was really exciting. And that's when we started moving forward with that. And what the art kits are is our actual physical kits, bags filled with art materials, watercolors, chalk pastels, gosh, I can't, felt pens, just clay, whatever. I don't know exactly what the art center has in mind to put in there, but it's just great stuff. And then along with those art kits will be lessons that show how to use the materials, how to use watercolors, how to use felt pens to do sketches and drawings. And materials in the kit can be used in more than one way. And so there'll be lessons that can show one way to use it and then another lesson that shows another way. So there'll be multi-uses for the materials, not just a one-time use. We're setting the kits up so that they'll go to the teachers as well, the classroom teachers and the science teachers. I noticed that, I thought that was very interesting. And that is because in science there's a lot of drawing and a lot of diagramming and a lot of experimentation with different materials and mediums. And so the science teachers can bring the art kits into their instruction as well and give kids ideas of ways to explore them. So that's why we included that. We were giving them to the teachers so that the teachers can also include them in their instruction or have one day a week where everybody brings something they've done with the art kits and shows it on screen. And then of course the kids can use them at home when they're not on screen, which is the point. We wanna give them a way to learn, to feel good, to experience learning that doesn't have to be relating to a screen. And so that was why the art kits really resonated for us. That's very cool. I mean, I know that there are a lot of probably adults who are jealous. It's our kids' lives. Keep your hands off the kids' arms. I know there's a multicultural aspect to it because you're doing, you're translating everything, right? It's available in multiple languages. We are going to make every effort to translate it, yes, into Spanish. Into Spanish. I understood there's also a singalong component, one of the products. We're also planning to include a singalong component which will be videos of local artists singing and words along the bottom, you know, the old singalong. So the kids can sing along because unfortunately, you know, we can't fund the choirs this year, which is something that we feel strongly about. And we wanted to include some kind of a vocalization, singing component for those kids who really benefit from that and resonate with the music. So we're including those as well. I should say that the kits include that the kids are going to be going only to the fifth grade students in the district. We really wish we could give it to all kids in the district. But as you can imagine, that would be a very costly undertaking. So we chose fifth grade. We chose it because, you know, fifth graders are older, they've got their reading skills under control, usually by fifth grade. So they can work independently with these kits. It's an important developmental year. There's a lot of connections going on at that age level. And so that we felt that was going to be the age group that we could both, we could best serve. So for those of us who don't have kids, fifth grade equates to about what? Ages? Oh gosh. I think it's about age 10. About age 10? Yeah. 11, 10, 11, 12, somewhere in that framework there. So you're still collecting donations and financial support for this project, correct? You mentioned a little bit about that. Yeah, sure. Right now, the entire project is taking about $40,000. A little more than that actually, excuse me, closer to 50,000 is the amount that is being used towards this project. Some of that is most of that. The bulk of that is coming from the Davis-Glaris Foundation and the Davis Joint Unified School District is also contributing 18,000. 18,000 is our base that we give every year. And then we, depending on the amount of money that we have in a given year and our expenses, we donate more beyond that. So that's what we're doing this year and the total amount is about 50,000 that we're giving. Now that will provide some really nice art kits. We started out at a lower number and as I worked with the Davis Arts Center, we began to realize that we wanted to provide something better. And so we increased our giving from the Davis-Glaris Foundation. We figured this is the year to do it. We have the resources, it may dip into our resources in the future, but this is the year to do it. We have a second project that we would dearly love to do. It's a dance project that would involve creating videos or online recordings of dances, multicultural dances, wide variety of dance styles and making it available to all the schools in the district, the elementary schools K through six to be used. They could be viewed at home for kids to practice at home along with the video. They can be used in the classroom. Once we're back in the classrooms again by teachers, by PE teachers. And so they would be a long lasting resource, but that is going to take a considerably larger amount of money than we have available at this time. So we are kind of setting that as a goal, maybe we can reach by next fall. And in the meantime, if more donations come in that are on a smaller scale, we'll be able to enrich the art kits even a little bit more. The website, right? They can donate right there on the front page. I saw the link. So I'll put it up on the screen. It's the Davis School Arts Foundation.org. Yeah, so if people donated $500 to the Davis School Arts Foundation, that would provide kits for 10 students of the art kits. If people, if someone donated 1500, that would provide kits for a whole classroom. We're gonna be serving about 750 to 800 kids. That's about how many we're gonna hit. And if somebody donated, you know, glory be 40,000, that would fund the whole art. That would fund the entire video project. The dance video project. Dance video project, or a whole nother grade level of art kits. Right. So you would expand the offering to more grades if you can get the hundred people. Yes, absolutely, yeah. Now, dance is something that I believe, I mean, with YouTube and TikTok and all that, it's really kind of made a national surge, hasn't it, in the last few years? I guess so, yeah, I think so. Because, you know, when I see kids, it's basically they see what other people are doing on online, and that inspires them to try harder or do things. And I know that they have the, you know, the talent programs on TV. What you see the kids are capable of nowadays is just very incredible, you know, like the coordination and what do they call it? The choreography and the flips and the physicality of everything they're doing. But it's kind of interesting to see the way the internet has really brought everyone together and spread ideas so quickly in the arts. Because of course, you know, the arts also with painting and people can find lessons and stuff. This whole project I think is really neat. I know with everybody stuck at home, it's just, it's very difficult. That's why we wanted to do, that's why we jumped on this so quickly. Because, you know, we're living in different times now. And DSAF, as I said, was on the brink of looking at how we can change our model a little bit. And so this is kind of an opportunity for us to explore that a bit. I don't know where we'll go after this is all past and we're back to being in human contact again. But it's certainly, we're certainly living in times that have made this possible and make it possible for us to be connecting still, even though we have to be socially distanced. And I, for one, I'm really grateful for this. It's helped me to continue to feel connected to people that I care about and do work that I care about doing, like DSAF. So, but otherwise would have ground to a halt. So this is really a valuable thing. And if we can use it in the future to bring more art and more experiences to kids, I think that's wonderful. There's a really good example coming up. And the Davis Media Access is supporting this. I'm sure you know about it, that Bill Fairfield usually does the Home for the Holidays concert in December. And that, I don't know how many people know, but that concert benefits the Davis School Arts Foundation. It's one of our biggest contributions. And obviously they're not going to have the concert in person this year, but Billy is bringing it to the good computers, to our computers online. And that's happening on December 17th. And he's providing it, no ticket sales. If you do buy a $25, you do a $25 donation, you will get a video or a CD of the concert last year, and which will be a lot of the same performers as this year. But Billy's doing this completely with the idea that people will donate to DSAF during the concert. So that's an example of how we're changing and using this new media that we have, this technology to do good for people and bring people together. So maybe let's wrap up and then project out a little bit into the future since you said that you've been doing a lot of thinking about that before COVID struck. What do you think are the critical issues, maybe, and policy issues that need to be addressed for the future of arts education and improving it here locally or nationally, now that we have a new administration coming in. We can go, right? Yeah. We need to fund it. We need to fund it seriously. We need to fund teachers. We need to fund not only our teachers, but of course we need that, but we need to fund all teachers because teachers in the classroom, on the ground are the ones who are teaching art every day. And we also need to give teachers more autonomy and more stay in what happens in our classrooms and what is taught and how it is taught. Those things are critical. Teachers are under enormous pressure right now. I have a daughter who's a middle school teacher and I know what kind of pressure she's under. Having been a teacher myself, I know what kind of pressure that would be. And that's not anything new. It's just different now. So we need to learn from this time that we're going through just how valuable education is, how valuable our teachers are and how much support we really should be getting and are not and have not for a very, very long time. And in arts education for DSAF, I hope we can increase our grants and increase them wildly. I'd love to see us doing more collaboration with other organizations like the Davis Arts Center where we remain independent organizations but who are working together to build and bring more to our kids. It's important. And I'd love to see a future in which those things are happening. All right. Well, I think that's probably a good place to wrap it up. Thanks so much for inviting us. You're welcome and thank you for coming on and sharing with us your thoughts. And that's it for in the studio today and we'll see you again next time. How do you feel about, because obviously computers are really the power they're gaining and the way arts are done about digital arts because now the painting and all these things are being done. I am a water colorist, right? So I very strongly believe in and I'm in the traditional animation, hand-run animation. So I really believe in all that but I know that a lot of the art that's created, at least commercially now, it's all digitally based and the graphic arts are certainly a lot of that is done digitally. And of course, music has got a combination of things but 50% of that maybe is done digitally now. So how do you feel about that? Well, I mean, I personally like the old fashioned stuff. The hands on, get your hands on, get into it. I like acoustic music. I like, down home, people singing together music, harmonizing, no special effects music. I like the old masters and I love paintings and I'm a water colorist too. I like clay work. I mean, all that hands-on stuff, personally. But art is art. Art is the expression of the human spirit and the human experience. And all through time, that's always been changing. I mean, not very many people paint like the old masters anymore. And we're always changing and we're always evolving in art and that's what art is, is the evolving process of the human nature. So I think as that changes, we should be supporting it, not criticizing it or putting it down or weeding it out. But I think it's interesting to see where it goes. And I've seen some pretty awesome stuff that occurs out of the digital art world. There's some pretty amazing things. I'm thinking of, I don't know if, an interesting overlap of those two worlds is I don't know if you've seen on some of the social media, there's a, what do you call it, a GIF, a thing you can click on and move it around. And it's paintings by Van Gogh, but they've been painted in such a way that you can actually move it around. It looks as if you're moving through a universe that is- Oh, wow. I haven't seen that. I'll have to check that out. It's really, really awesome. It's very wild. And I looked at that and I thought, what an interesting mixture of the old master and the current technology. So, I think there's room for both. I think we need to be sure we're exposing kids to both because they build on one another and both be there. Do you feel there's an ideal time to bring in, like, or should they be getting digit, like some digital skills arts education at some point in the high, up to high school? Or do you think that's really for later on once they've established sort of the core art skills? Good question. And I really don't know the answer. I'm not an artist. I'm a watercolorist amateur, you know? I can do it for my own benefit. But I think that would, that's not a question I can really even answer. I, you know, I think it's good. I think it's important to have the hands on experience when they're really young. And should you bring in the digital? I don't know. I think that probably varies with each individual. But I do think the hands-on stuff is important. That's the small motor court. Because that's where a lot of that brain stuff happens. Right. The small motor court thing. I brain all that stuff happens in the early ages and that happens with art. And so I would say they definitely shouldn't be moving a mouse around and drawing on a screen when they're in elementary school. But you know, high school maybe, college probably. Yeah. I'm curious because for a few years I was a liaison for this thing called the Tower of Youth in Sacramento. And they were trying to, one of the things they wanted to do was get more digital skills into sort of the core curriculum because they're essential job skills. Just digital literacy, you know, overall. Sure, yeah. And you know, everything was being done as sort of career tech ed. But you know, almost any modern job, like you have to have some computer skills. You have to have some things. Absolutely. They felt it was really important. So they were doing all these different projects around that. And of course, in certain industries, say the film industry in particular, which I follow, you know, the digital stuff is just becoming very, very dominant. Yeah. Marvel movies are mostly animated actually. Yeah. They look like real people, but they're not. Yeah, yeah. At least augmented, it's not. Yeah. Oh yeah, definitely. Everything is augmented. Yeah. All right. Well, thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me Lorraine. You're welcome. And this little conversation was very interesting. If you want to include a piece of it, go ahead, you know. Yeah.