About Me

Teaching Philosophy

I believe an art studio is a place of comfort, calm, and creation—a place where anything can happen. My students will feel welcome and may even have a sense of belonging in the art room, because they are encouraged to show their true selves when they are creating art. The impact I wish to bring to the students is the comfort of knowing it is acceptable to find who they are, what they like, and how they want to get their ideas out. My goal is to guide students to grow, understand and appreciate themselves in the context of their friends, their family, and the world. If anything, I would most love to stimulate interest in the arts by introducing current artists and media. Of course, I will introduce iconic movements and artists in history, but I believe the present is the time to focus most on because current events and culture are relevant to students, so it would serve to spark interest and help them connect to their work.

I understand there are students of all backgrounds and learning differences, so I like to include small group times to brainstorm ideas for projects and to try to view the project through someone else’s eyes. I think it is important to gain perspective of the people around us in order to become open-minded beings. I do not believe students are “blank slates” on which to acquire knowledge. Like constructivist teachers, I believe each student brings past experiences and culture to school in order to help the class as a whole to draw their own ideas and knowledge from the world.

Overall, I would like to instill basic fundamentals that will guide students’ behavior throughout their lives. I believe learning respect and courtesy for other people and their work is essential as well as learning patience with your creations and pushing yourself. Perseverance is key in the art studio, and students will learn that just because they do not think they can draw, or paint or sculpt, that does not mean there is no way for them to learn to. You could be the next Michelangelo, but if you're a lazy Michelangelo or you're goofing off, you will get a low grade in my class.

After all: "One must also accept that one has 'uncreative' moments. The more honestly one can accept that, the quicker these moments will pass. One must have the courage to call a halt, to feel empty and discouraged."

-a quote from Etty Hillesum

9 Things the Arts Teach Us

1. The arts teach students to make good judgments about qualitative relationships.

Unlike much of the curriculum in which correct answers and rules prevail, in the arts, it is judgment rather than rules that prevail.

2. The arts teach children that problems can have more than one solution and that questions can have more than one answer.

3. The arts celebrate multiple perspectives.

One of their large lessons is that there are many ways to see and interpret the world.

4. The arts teach children that in complex forms of problem solving purposes are seldom fixed, but change with circumstance and opportunity. Learning in the arts requires the ability and a willingness to surrender to the unanticipated possibilities of the work as it unfolds.

5. The arts make vivid the fact that neither words in their literal form nor numbers exhaust what we can know. The limits of our language do not define the limits of our cognition. (If you are confused by this, take a gander at Mark Rothko's Color Fields)

6. The arts teach students that small differences can have large effects.

The arts traffic in subtleties. One mark can change the look and feel of an entire canvas or drawing! It teaches us to think before we act.

7. The arts teach students to think through and within a material.

All art forms employ some means through which images become real. In order to compose an appreciated image, you must think ahead.

8. The arts help children learn to say what cannot be said.

When children are invited to disclose what a work of art helps them feel, they must reach into their poetic capacities to find the words that will do the job.

9. The arts enable us to have an experience we can have from no other source and through such experience to discover the range and variety of what we are capable of feeling.

- See more at: http://www.arteducators.org/advocacy/10-lessons-the-arts-teach#sthash.zypXzt8b.dpuf