Art Teacher Bio

Education and work history

Mrs. Ritchey has been teaching visual arts classes at Shades Valley High School since 2006. Prior to teaching at Shades Valley, she taught as an adjunct Professor at the University of Montevallo teaching painting, drawing and mixed media classes. Mrs. Ritchey received her MFA in Painting from Central Washington University and her BFA in Painting from University of Montevallo. At UM she took many different art courses in drawing, painting, printmaking, ceramics, photography and art history with a concentration in painting. For two years between college and graduate school, she moved to Chicago and worked for an art gallery as an exhibit preparator.

Travels and accomplishments

The summer before graduating from Montevallo, she attended a summer abroad program through University of Cortona to study art in Cortona, Italy with a TA apprenticeship in printmaking. In 2012, she traveled to India as part of NAEA delegation to India with other art teachers across the US and teachers from Canada and South Africa. In 2013, she was awarded the AAEA Secondary Art Teacher of the year, and in 2014, the NAEA Southeastern Region Secondary Division Art Educator of the Year. In 2017 she was accepted to the Teachers for Global Classrooms fellowship program, a fulbright fellowship program offered through the US Dept. of State Bureau of Educational and cultural affairs, and traveled to Morocco to co-teach at a Moroccan high school in Agadir, along with a cohort of other US teachers. The TGC program trains teachers extensively to bring global education competencies and approaches into the classroom, creating opportunities for students to connect and share with other students around the world. Please make sure to view the student work examples from our school wide collaborative project "In Darfur", as well as student work inspired by travels to Morocco and India.