art education at Tillamook high shool
For four years I was the sole art educator in a rural school district. I developed six course curriculums to national standards through project-based learning, student exhibitions, visiting artists, and public art projects, and established the school's first student literary & arts magazine. My approach to teaching is holistic – teaching to the whole learner to move in the direction of interdisciplinary thinking, integration of knowledge, and complexity. By investigating problems worth solving, my students used art to address their cognitive, social, and emotional needs.
bringing art to rural communities
Many of my students hadn't studied art before high school and had limited exposure to the world of art beyond their rural community. Each class took an annual field trip to the Portland Art Museum to study contemporary and traditional arts, and to tour a college art department. For many students, this was their first time inside a museum, and for some their first time in an urban center. Their creativity and ambition notably exploded after these trips.
drawing beyond observation
Teenagers are better prepared to explore surrealism in their art once they have mastered hand-eye control. By bending the rules of physics, their art takes on new level of expression.
“The heart of this teaching approach is the belief that the essential goal of art teaching is to inspire children to behave like artists – to try on the artist’s role, to feel what it is to gather an idea on one’s own and act on it. The goal is to reveal to children that art comes from within themselves, [...] that art is found in familiar places and ordinary environments, accessible to everyone. It is to bring children closer to art – nearer to themselves, to their own views, and to their own visions.”
merging digital and handmade
Printmaking students explored pop art through the reduction printing method. Using Photoshop to posterize celebrity headshots, they transferred the image to a linoleum block, carved each process layer, and printed multiple editions of each. Andy Warhol would be proud! (Pictured in various stages of completion.)
interpreting art history
Students studied art history in addition to media exploration. A class favorite was to reinterpret a master work (Grant Wood's American Gothic, pictured) through the method of another artist (here, Roy Lichtenstein's Ben-day dots) for unexpected results.
exhibiting student work
Each year I produced an exhibition of every students work in a single show off campus. Students learned to bring a work to completion and how to mat their art.
unit design SAMPLE - Pandora’s problem
…To foster interdisciplinary thinking and encourage complexity, student artists first learn about ancient Greek vessels and mythology, research and defend their global problem, and finally begin the sculptural design, applying their ceramic skills…