My primary goal as a teacher is to engage students, inspiring them to pursue critical thought and original ideas both in their work and outside the classroom. I work with an open-ended individualized approach to teaching to achieve this goal. I encourage a collective learning process that crosses disciplines to create an environment were differing and innovative ideas can be articulated, realized, evaluated and understood.
In my fine arts classes I focus on painting, drawing, and two-dimensional design and one of my primary responsibilities entails balancing formal, critical and conceptual considerations with technical skill and craftsmanship. I use hands-on demonstrations while encouraging originality and critical thinking with reading assignments, individual and group critiques, in-class discussions, and open-ended projects. Achieving a balance also requires incorporating the goals of the class with the context, level and discipline in which the class is taught. As an art history instructor, I seek to offer a historical and cultural context for various art making practices and individual artists, providing students with critical thinking skills to view art movements as a trajectory that builds on the past, though this path is not always linear, but rather informed by multi-level perspectives. In addition to the required reading materials, through field trips and outside assignments, I encourage students to go beyond the classroom to engage in art experiences locally and beyond.
I continue to glean new information from my professional and personal experiences that contribute to the development of my teaching philosophy and my understanding of what it means to be an artist-educator. Presently, in addition to teaching fine art and art history classes at Jefferson Community and Technical College, I also teach fine art and art history through JCTC’s Prison Education Program, having taught at both the men’s prisons- Kentucky State Reformatory and Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. In the fall, I am scheduled to teach the first fine art class offered by the Prison Education Program- an introductory drawing class- at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex. I find teaching in the prison system to be very rewarding, as the majority of the students are eager for meaningful learning experiences, which is what I try to provide in lectures, open discussions, and hands-on demonstrations.
Teaching at Jefferson Community and Technical College necessitated adopting appropriate methods to deal with the constraints of working in an urban community college. My students come from diverse economic backgrounds, age groups and cultures, while a large portion of them hold jobs and/or commute. Whenever possible, I seek to work with my students on an individual level, to best accommodate their needs and to further challenge their interest in subjects related to the course and beyond. In my lecture and studio classes, I aspire to connect to a diverse student population, through open-ended discussions and critical explorations of historical traditions and contemporary art practices. The most valuable experiences I gained in this capacity were through one-on-one interactions with students during their studio time. Here, I recognized how students’ diversity of needs vary widely in complexity and nature even in a class as small as six or seven.
Since the fall 2007, I have taught drawing and two-dimensional design classes at the University of Louisville. The student population is generally commuter-based and my studio classes are much larger (up to 27 students) than those at JCTC (up to 10 students). The classes I teach serve as a foundation for students who may or may not wish to pursue a Bachelor’s of Fine Art degree. Foundation art classes attract those with limited art experience as well as those familiar with more traditional art forms including sculpture, painting and printmaking, requiring that mutual and unfamiliar concerns be contextualized within critique and shared between varying backgrounds and disciplines.
I have a wide range of teaching experience, encompassing many levels, backgrounds and age groups. After matriculating from the Maryland Institute, College of Art (MICA), I taught art classes and created curriculum for summer camps and after school programs for urban youth at the Living Classrooms Foundation in Baltimore. My teaching experience with children continued in Lima, Peru as a Visiting Artist in Residence, where I implemented a collaborative mural and quilt-making program at an elementary school, and taught an evening oil painting class to adults. Upon returning to Louisville, I taught continuing education classes (drawing and oil painting) to adults at the now defunct Artopia, as well as art classes to children and teenagers. I currently teach ongoing art workshops for children and adults at The Speed Art Museum in Louisville, KY, and I am the creator and facilitator of ‘Cabaret Life Drawing’, weekly public drawing classes at 21c Museum, also in Louisville.
My initial experience teaching at the college level came while a Painting MFA candidate at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago (SAIC). Here, I was a teaching assistant for ‘Painting Practices’, a class that hosted four rotating painting professors during the semester-long course. As the TA, I served as the constant for the undergraduate students taking the course, and also as a contact for the rotating professors. This experience was invaluable, as I was privy to varying approaches and methodologies to teaching the same subject. The students benefited from the pluralistic approach to the course, and to the present, I like to bring guests to my classrooms to offer unique perspectives to my own courses’ content.
As an undergraduate student at MICA, I majored in Painting and Art History and I held internships with professional artists in rural Colorado and in the Education Department at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City. I also studied abroad in Rome, Italy and found this experience to be very enriching and the impetus for all my subsequent travels abroad. Obtaining life experience by encountering different cultures or learning a new skill set from trained professionals augments and elevates one’s college education. I encourage my students to take advantage of internship and study abroad programs as they were among the most rewarding experiences of my undergraduate education.
I am dedicated to multi-dimensional, creative and collective learning methods that draw upon many sources for inspiration. As an artist-educator, my learning experience never ceases, and therefore I remain open-minded and flexible when incorporating my teaching philosophy into practice, and equally attentive to other philosophies that may enhance this one. I see teaching as a continual learning process indebted to the teachers whom challenged and inspired me.