The Leigh Yawkey Woodson Art Museum received a grant from the Green Bay Packers Foundation to support a future tactile exhibition, inviting all visitors to experience a new way to “see” by touching a selection of artwork from the Museum’s collection. Woodson Art Museum director Kathy Kelsey Foley and assistant director Matt Foss received a $3,000 grant check during a Dec. 5 luncheon at the Lambeau Field Atrium in Green Bay.

“We are thrilled, honored, and humbled to be among the recipients of a 2018 Green Bay Packers Foundation grant,” said Woodson Art Museum director Kathy Kelsey Foley. “The Woodson Art Museum is grateful to receive a 2018 award, and we look forward to welcoming visitors of all interests – football and art – to experience our tactile exhibition, debuting in early 2019.”

The exhibition is designed to comprise tactile – entirely touchable – artworks from the Woodson Art Museum’s collection and will encourage all visitors to experience the sculptures through touch. Also, this tactile exhibition will be enhanced by accessible interpretive materials, including braille labels and a listening device for use by visitors with blindness or visual impairments. Museum educators and curators are working with consultant and sculptor Ann Cunningham, who teaches at the Colorado Center for the Blind, to develop the exhibition.

Art Beyond Sight, a Woodson Art Museum program implemented in 2006 and offered quarterly, provides multi-sensory ways for individuals with blindness or low vision to experience the visual arts. Museum staff continually strive to provide audiences with quality, barrier-free art experiences through these and other programs that enliven and amplify the themes of temporary changing exhibitions and Museum collection exhibitions. The tactile exhibition will enable all visitors – sighted and visually impaired – to engage with artworks during each Woodson Art Museum visit.

“We’re proud to recognize these outstanding recipient organizations, who are all doing incredible work in our communities,” Packers President/CEO Mark Murphy said at the Dec. 5 luncheon. “As a community-owned team, we are inspired by the efforts of these organizations and the positive impact they have on those that they serve.”

The 230 grants included 30 to Brown County organizations which received a total of $107,500 and 200 to other groups statewide, totaling $692,500. This year’s grant cycle focuses on organizations that will direct grant funds toward projects focused on arts and culture, athletics and education.