Standing in front of art can feel intimidating. Visitors may not know what a piece is trying to convey, or it may stir thoughts they have never had before. Robertson saw that discomfort as an opening to bring the Art of Seeing initiative to the Museum at Tech.
The idea started in 2015, when Robertson read a magazine from the American Alliance of Museums. It carried an interview with the director of the Toledo Museum of Art about a visual literacy program there. "Literacy is about being able to read. Visual literacy is being able to read the visual," Robertson said.
In 2021, she needed a way to guide students from the local college's School of Nursing on a trip to the Wichita Falls Museum of Art, where she was director. She used the steps Toledo lists on its website, under the name The Art of Seeing Art. She has since made them more user friendly, and now she is adapting them for people who have aphasia, a disorder that affects how people communicate.
Robertson has long wanted to share art with people, knowing "it's not a part of everyday life."
One magazine, left on a desk for years, now shapes how a Lubbock museum teaches people to look.