“I decided that Monet and Modigliani would be very happy to pay it forward and to help young artists,” she said.

That belief extends to YoungArts mentors such as Edward Albee, Wynton Marsalis, Bobby McFerrin, Robert Redford, Julian Schnabel and many more. On Arison’s wish list: choreographer Julie Taymor and actress Tilda Swinton.

Architect Frank Gehry, who came to know Arison when he designed the New World Center in Miami Beach and has mentored students through YoungArts, will create a master plan for the campus that will include year-round programming.

“She has a dream and a mission and some resources to back it up — and put the three of those things together and it’s a force of nature,” Gehry said.

At a ceremony announcing the plan on Wednesday, Lin Arison stood in front of a bank of cameras — never her favorite place — and immediately shifted the focus.

“Ted is a source of everything that goes on,” she said. “I think it’s really important because he’s watching us, and so I’m telling everybody: It’s really him.”

She expects she’ll also deflect the spotlight later this month, when dancer and choreographer Mikhail Baryshnikov presents her with the arts education award from Americans for the Arts at a ceremony whose honorees include Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen, artist James Rosenquist; baritone Brian Stokes Mitchell and singer and actor Josh Groban.

“Lin is a wonderful, fabulous person on so many fronts, but she’s not somebody who seeks the limelight at all,” said Robert L. Lynch, president and CEO of Americans for the Arts. “We needed to, um, coax her into understanding how important she is and deserving of this award.”

So she plans to take the opportunity to spread the word about the new teachers guide to go with episodes from the HBO program YoungArts MasterClass, which is being used in public schools in Miami, New York and Los Angeles. The goal is to get it in schools nationwide.

Publicity for her passions is fine. But Arison would be happier in the background.

“I think this is the first time in all of the years I’ve known her that I’m talking about her,” said Tilson Thomas, the New World Symphony’s artistic director. “Generally what Lin says is, ‘Oh no, don’t say anything about me, don’t mention me.’ ”

Although the Arisons have donated tens of millions of dollars to the organizations they founded (and more, anonymously, to other groups), their name does not grace any buildings in a city where naming rights are sold to art museums, science centers and performing arts institutions.

“It’s not the glorification of her name or Ted’s name,” Braman said. “That’s not the way Ted was and it’s not the way she is.”

Arison said her husband never allowed his name to be splashed around, and set that example for the rest of the family.

“I don’t like people who use money for self-esteem or to have people look at them,” she said. “So I would rather do the work. I basically do the work and don’t talk about the money.”

She’s not involved in the business interests that made her husband a wealthy man; his net worth was valued at $5.6 billion by Forbes before he died. His son from a previous marriage, Micky Arison, is chairman and CEO of Carnival Corp. and owner of the Miami Heat, which Ted Arison helped start.