LEARNING and fun don't necessarily go hand in hand. It is, however, the foundation on which the education progamme at the Bermuda National Gallery was developed; to provide students and visitors with an experience that, albeit educational, encourages and excites the artist or art lover in them.

The responsibility of the programme falls on the shoulders of Rachel Skrlac, whose duty it is to oversee all aspects of the gallery regarding education.

"What we really want is to make the gallery a place that isn't esoteric and scary and only welcoming to those people who can (recognise a Rodin)," the acting education director said. "It's meant to be a place where, if you want an aesthetically-pleasing environment you can come and maybe learn something. But if you just want to relax by looking at the pictures, that's what the gallery's for as well."

The gallery is Bermuda's only true art museum, according to Mrs. Skrlac. With that prestige comes a number of responsibilities, of which education is only one.

"We represent art from different eras that has absolutely nothing to do with Bermuda except for the fact that it's important that we're exposed to other ideas. (At the other end of the scale) our upcoming Winter Exhibition will include a comprehensive history of Bermudian art and then we have our Biennial every other year so we can showcase contemporary Bermudian artists and give them a venue; so we can celebrate how thriving the arts are in Bermuda right now.

"We bring in art, sometimes, that perhaps really has nothing to do with Bermuda but we feel it's important that our population gets a broad exposure to cultural ideas and experiences in other parts of the world. Through the arts we can do that. We can capture history. We can capture cultures. We can capture art forms.

"Our mandate is to educate, inform and encourage the consumption of the arts in Bermuda. We're different from Masterworks. They collect artwork by non-Bermudians - people who tended to leave; itinerant artists who were in Bermuda to do artwork but who didn't interact with the population.

"(Masterworks) has as their objective to collect that artwork, while our objective is to represent Bermudians through our collections. We're also different from the Bermuda Society of Arts which shows contemporary art all the time.

"It's a wonderful venue where you can go and buy great things. We don't sell any of our art here. This is more of an art museum than a gallery space."

Perhaps the most extensive offered through an art facility on the island, the BNG education programme was created under the premise that any well-rounded society includes visual arts as a valuable component. It is divided into four components - an education programme, an education centre, education classes and adult education - which together work to build knowledge and interest in art through informative and, when possible, interactive experiences with BNG exhibitions and the permanent collection.

"We have art education classes featuring four week-long summer camp classes," she said. "Each week focuses on a different theme, the objectives of which are to promote and provide quality art education to Bermuda's student community; to draw the community into the gallery space and to foster a welcoming environment within our physical gallery space. Our focus on adult education includes docent-led tours, a series of lunchtime and evening lectures, producing exhibitions-specific publications, and volunteer training."

It is the educational opportunities that the gallery provides for kids, however, which Mrs. Skrlac seems most excited about.

"The Art Reach education programme focuses on encouraging the schools to use the gallery as an extension of the classroom," she explained. "Trained docents lead them on a tour and really try to involve them in an interactive component.

"For the fall exhibit, Once Upon A Time, which featured the art in children's storybooks, we had drawing stations, a scratchboard station, an area where they could write a book and an area where they could sit and read.

"Part of our Art Reach programme is through the schools. We send the teachers information packages with exercises in it so the kids can be prepared for what's in here and get excited about it. (Once Upon A Time) was fabulously received.

"We haven't gotten a bad comment yet from any (of the teachers) and had a large number of repeat visitors which is an indication that people are enjoying themselves and finding enough to do in here."

THE gallery's Education Centre was created in response to its growing role as a family-friendly space, the acting director said. With the opening of the gallery's Winter Exhibitions - The art of Japanese Woodblock Prints, covering 350 years of woodblocks in Japan; the Ideal Collection, reviewing the development of fine and decorative arts in Bermuda over the last 300 years; the European Collection, the impetus for creating the BNG, combining loaned pieces with those from its permanent collection; and Coash and Jones, a collaborative photographic exhibit - this area will be extended to include components of, and link together, each of the main exhibits.

"It will be a composite of (the) four upcoming exhibitions," said Mrs. Skrlac. "The Ideal, Watlington and Japanese exhibits all cover 350 years, and roughly the same period of time. So it's an amazing opportunity to do a cross-cultural analysis.

"We can ask kids to compare how a tree is represented by this illustrator versus this Bermudian illustrator and then ask them to draw a tree themselves. We can ask them to compare how a house looked in a Japanese print versus a house in a Bermuda drawing. We can analyse what subjects were used. We can discuss what this tells us about the values of the society. We can even learn from the different ways in which the prints were made.

"We're really going to make the education space one where, when kids come in, they can automatically go in there. There will be exercises they can do that are solitary as well as ones they can take from in there and roam the museum with their parents, or interact with pieces on their own."

Stations in which kids can reproduce origami, create haiku and read books on the various cultures represented, will be available, she says.

"We'll even have some picture and story books. The younger kids really embraced them in Once Upon A Time. We don't want to overwhelm anyone. They're small, they're easily digested and they (offer) two or three points that, if they walk out with, we're happy.

"And then they can come back and learn more. We really believe strongly that the arts give children the qualitative characteristics of living. Through the arts, a child can learn how to solve problems. There's a quote and I'll get it wrong but it goes something like, 'You can take any material and you have to work through that material to come out with an expression.'

"And that's what's so wonderful about art. It's not confining and yet you still have to be able to work through that material. Some artists use pastels, some use clay, writers use words, but you're still coming up with this statement and it reflects personal ideas. That's sort of our underlying tenet of why we believe the arts are really important. There is that qualitative, informal experience in an art gallery where there's not that rigid, 'In 15 minutes we're going to finish this test and you need to know how to do these quantifiable skills.' There's no right and wrong."

q The Bermuda National Gallery is located on the second floor of City Hall. For information on programmes or opening hours, telephone 295-9428.