I have found that a strong formal and technical foundation
in any media can give a young artist the confidence and courage to imagine and
create projects of great complexity. In training the mind to process
information and the hands to engage with matter simultaneously a unique kind of
learning occurs, and the young artist begins to develop a toolbox for
expression. An intimate familiarity of materials and processes can enhance the
student’s ability to understand the physical and social complexity of the
world. The effects of this empowerment have been visible to me over a range of
media from drawing and digital design to model-making, sewing, metal casting, and
teaching young women to weld.
Every student has different strengths, needs, interests,
and approaches to learning. I work from an intention of equity rather than
equality, noticing which students may need more encouragement and instruction
than others. My pedagogy reflects multiple strategies with the common goal of
empowering students as creative and critical thinkers. I have taught
technique-focused introductory courses as well as advanced courses that rely on
a theoretical framework. Each exercise or assignment challenges students to
engage in a form of making alongside conceptual development that draws on art,
design, and craft history, contemporary and historical art theory, materiality
and cultural context.
One of the most rewarding moments in teaching happens when
a student is excited to move forward because of what experimentation has taught
them. I promote the creative cycle as a process that includes inspiration, experimentation,
production, analysis, persistence and the valuation of “failure.” With an
emphasis on creative exercises rather than the creation of masterpieces, beginning
students build generative skills of inquiry, analysis, and critical reflection
that will continue to inform and sustain their practice. This cycle can lead
not only to a sustained interest in art-making, but in seeking new ways to
relate to and engage with the world creatively and critically.
I view teaching as an informative complement to my art
practice, providing an opportunity to continually reaffirm, challenge, expand
my own ideas about making art, and extend the art-historical conversation to
address the students’ specific contemporary concerns. Beyond the mastery
technical skills, artists in all disciplines and stages of development are
involved in an endless inquiry and engagement with the world. I encourage
students to draw inspiration from a multitude of sources, including research
based in history, science, culture, technology, literature, philosophy, and
their own personal interests, identities, and experiences, and seek the
appropriate materials for the expression of their ideas.
It is important to me as a teacher in a multi-cultural
classroom to show a wide range of ways that artists have approached and
interpreted ideas and theories in art, design, and craft. It is paramount to
the growth of individuals within a diverse student body to see that someone like
them, as well as someone different from them, is represented among the examples
of artists’ work that I feature in lectures. If a student is able to see
diversity of interpretations of success, they are more likely to be able to
envision their own success, and the success of others.
My goal is to facilitate the open sharing of ideas, critical
feedback, and cooperative learning among students as a class community. For
example, I draw upon the rich history of collaboration and community-building
in textiles to structure my Intro to Fiber class. Projects include group
rope-making with found materials, a frame loom assembly line, a class weaving
on a 4-shaft floor loom where each student dyes 2” of warp and weaves 12” of
variations of a Bird’s Eye twill to create a collective cloth. Students in my
advanced classes contribute to a collective research blog, which is discussed
weekly.
By promoting an environment safe for discussion from
multiple perspectives, collaborative learning, risk-taking and experimentation,
I strive to inspire each student to develop their individual talents and
research process, find their own perspective, voice, and subject matter, and to
cultivate and engage in the language of critical thinking, proposition, and
problem solving with others. Success is visible when students emerge with the
curiosity, skills, strategies, community, excitement and confidence to fuel and
sustain their own generative creative practices that value the messy process of
the formulation of questions over the possibility of polished correct answers.
