Teaching Philosophy

I foster a classroom of respect and direct communication where students know what is expected of them on assignments, attendance and where creative risk-taking is encouraged. Risk choices produce the most fruitful learning episodes, frequently when students fall flat. Lessons born from small failures coupled with an environment that supports that exploration is essential to getting the most out of student performance. I have always noted this when students surprise themselves with their own discoveries and can distinguish that it took the equation of their investment plus the classroom setting to achieve creative results. I make efforts to stay current with artists, materials and technology to design lessons that reflect trends relevant to advancing studio art study.

The studio classroom benefits greatly when history can impact student research and assignments. I promote student awareness of what came before them, how the context of art movements influenced each other and how photography and abstraction primed 20th century artists to expand conceptual layers in their art. Additionally, I strive to tie these groundbreakers of the last 150 years to contemporary art pioneers. The competitive aspects to art exhibition and the sheer number of artists working today demand that students be attentive to current events in the art world. Students who can infuse the past and present resources find themselves not needing my endorsement alone to submit their work to art exhibitions. They gravitate to it and desire to make their in kind contribution.

I insist on a studio practice from students that respects safety and proper handling of all materials to facilitate a fully functional environment. Tool accessibility should be outlined clearly to empower students to use, clean and organize an efficient and creative multi purpose studio, lab or classroom. I do emphasize building solid technical skills, strict procedures for handling delicate, toxic and dangerous supplies and patient craft in assembling and creating student projects.

I also approach these concerns with a healthy awareness that a classroom studio with a lopsided ratio of technical skill building to art goal emphasis is one easily mired in its own glorification of “how to”. The public gauges printmakers’ and digital artists’ works in the exhibition space as art pieces in and of themselves; regardless of the way they were made and criticize them as quickly and equally as a drawing or painting. Digital and analog technical skills alone produce thin art. These classrooms must also champion a more poetic art investigation that merges technical savvy with a graceful and thoughtful application of it. Process work on the road to conclusions is scrutinized. Students write about their art exploration and draw to advance their development.

Students with hefty technical learning curves are still expected to produce challenging works. I do push for parameters of ability to enhance and elevate results beyond computer wizardry, decorative or graphic moves. It is the inventiveness of how students invoke their dexterity of those tools that sparks originality. I enlist students to be vulnerable to failure so that their outcomes might be a whole greater than the sum of their parts. So doing might require great labor with no guarantee of great creation, but surely great lessons learned; perhaps even what not to do. Criticism requires me to be sensitive to student contributions of time to learn techniques while also cultivating authentic themes. It is a supportive approach that requires a balance of expectation while negotiating exposed student fears. Student artists can embrace tough criticisms for their merit most when this considerate method focuses on elevating their products to their loftiest potential. I’ve found that this honest approach energizes groups and rallies enthusiastic, shared learning—not to mention, improvements. It is one thing to hear the feedback; and another entirely to apply it.

Communication tools, be they face-to-face meetings or online, are embraced under my teaching philosophy. Each method requires the same clarity in its usage to function as an elevating component for the student. I utilize online web spaces for classroom materials to increase access, reiterate class objectives, make announcements, compel group feedback beyond class critique, post visuals from class demonstrations and link relevant events, artists and reference materials.

The classroom space I describe is one based in admiration for what each individual student brings with her or him. I strive to offer the best I have to the format. I expect students to subscribe to the same by encouraging an open and trusting environment; where personal emotions inform art making and clarity rather than drama or argument. A diverse classroom demands courtesy.

The reverence for teaching also applies to being one faculty member amidst a larger, dynamic body of colleagues. I recognize that students bring to my class a wealth of prior exposure to a collective base of learning. While I surely benefit from this, I hope to contribute equally by instilling the same inspiration as my students experience from an entire curriculum and its faculty at large.