Herriman » The first-graders of Providence Hall charter school walk up to the 1998 Ford F-Series van full of chatter and shouts. Once inside its 40-foot cargo space, however, they settle into whispers.

They walk a meandering path surrounded by inflated plastic bags stuffed into cardboard boxes and suspended from the van's ceiling. Morning sunlight shoots luminous rays through the plastic bags, while blowing fans keep them inflated.

Some of the young students are unable to contain their enthusiasm. "Awesome!" follows exclamations of "cool!" as they file out of the mobile art exhibit.

Adam Price, director of the 337 Project and Art Truck driver, said it helps when your exhibition audience is an average of three feet tall. Scale magnifies the effect.

Youthful accolades isn't all Price is seeking, though. Price, whose day job is as a lawyer for Salt Lake City's Jones Waldo law firm, wants to influence future art lovers. He wants youth to think more about why and how materials as basic as plastic and paper can be considered art.

After a good look around the installation created by Washington, D.C.,-based artist Dan Steinhilber, 6-year-old Shailey Pettit has some thoughts. "It's art in there because it's not just something you buy," Pettit said.

Price said the Art Truck concept was born after talking to a Salt Lake City artist who described a traditional ice cream truck that, instead of dairy products, offered neighborhood children a menu of artistic creations on Popsicle sticks. "That got me thinking about art on wheels," he said. "But it's not simply art on wheels. The truck itself becomes part of contemporary art. It becomes re-imagined."

Price, a Washington, D.C., native and graduate of Harvard Law School, became interested in art because of his wife, Dessi, who studied graphic design at Brigham Young University. The 337 Project was born when the couple let 150 artists loose on a building they purchased in downtown Salt Lake City at 337 S. 400 East, before it was scheduled for demolition. Over the course of three months, local painters turned the structure into a piece of collective art open to the public for six days in May 2007. Once demolished, the Prices decided to carry on the spirit of the project by founding a fledgling arts nonprofit.

Providence Hall marks the second stop in the Art Truck's debut tour. On April 3, Price drove Steinhilber's work to Sandy's Waterford School, where the art teacher offered students extra credit if they went home to create their own installation, then photograph it for their classmates. One student immediately thought of creating something with tooth brushes and dental floss.

Erin Preston, a Herriman parent and lawyer, liked the idea of an Art Truck from the get-go. A founder of Providence Hall, she said the project fills a vital need in an age of shrinking funding for arts education. Recalling her own art classes in junior high and high school, Preston said youth often respond to modern art more enthusiastically than slide shows of paintings by the old masters.

"It makes kids pull back to think about what it is they think," Preston said. "It becomes an individualized experience for them at a time when they're not allowed many individual experiences. And to have it brought free to schools the way Adam does it is almost something that has to happen for us to have it in schools."

Price said he worked for weeks last fall trying to write a mission statement for the Art Truck. Then a seventh-grader at Waterford gave him just the right words. "He said it made him realize that, 'If you just look at the world differently, you can see art everyday,' " Price said.

Portable art exhibitions aren't new. After all, Artrain of Ann Arbor, Mich., first used the railroad to take museum exhibitions nationwide almost 40 years ago, recently switching to large-scale semitrailers it calls mobile museum units.

What sets the 337 Project's Art Truck apart is its educational mission and emphasis on contemporary art.

The Art Truck utilizes both the outside and inside of the vehicle for maximum effect. In addition to providing the van's interior installation, Steinhilber painted a multicolored mural on the cargo hull's right side, while wife Maggie Michael gave the left side a contrasting monochrome treatment with a few small circular mirrors. Identifying and analyzing the difference between the two sides is one possible art-related assignment that's part of the 337 Project's curriculum during stops at Utah schools.

Schools aren't the only stops on the arts agency's schedule. Price said he plans on parking the Art Truck at Salt Lake City's Neighborhood House, which offers low-income families affordable day care, as well as in Provo during the city's Freedom Festival.

"It drives well, but it's always in the shop for repairs," Price said. "If we continue to do this, we'll upgrade at some point in the future."