- I encourage my students to develop strong formalistic and aesthetic understanding as a basis for expressing their own personal vision. I encourage my students to be aware of all that is going on around them in terms of visual and cultural stimuli, but inevitably, to be manipulated by none of it. I do feel, however, that a keen knowledge of art history and the traditions and techniques that have been developed through the ages is a necessity in analyzing and developing their own expression. Because of that, I integrate a thorough curriculum of pre- and post-modern art history into all of my courses. I do this by introducing material from my own library of books, as well as the resources from out institution’s library into the class session as regularly as possible. I also have worked with the Interlochen librarian towards building the art resources in the library, and have stayed informed about current publisher’s catalogs of books from all areas of the visual arts, so that I can help build that resource for our students. In addition, I am a voracious reader of contemporary periodicals that deal with art, culture, history, etc., and so I also incorporate that material into my classes as well. I have consulted our librarian about how to broaden the scope of that periodical literature available to the students, and this has informed much of how I have grown my curriculum as well.
- I encourage my students to experiment with all the media and technical apparatus available – in order to understand the limitless possibilities available in manipulating the inherent qualities of each media. I encourage each of my students to aggressively grow in their understanding of the inherent qualities of a variety of media in order for them to be able to also grow conceptually. I integrate methods learned through the Project Zero program at Harvard University, which I use towards having the students become more sensitive about specific formal decisions they are making, as well as becoming more sensitive to the essential quality of the process, and how this sensitivity promotes in them a more thorough understanding of the how the process informs their art-making.
- I consider myself a hands-on teacher, but I feel that I encourage each of my students to grow on their own – to explore and to be free to make “mistakes,” to push themselves in ways that their work takes them. I feel that the self-directed education is inevitably the best way to guide the student in their education as students of art. To this end I constantly encourage each student by asking open, active questions that then direct each of them towards active responses as shown in their work. I conduct classes in a way that allows me to approach each student individually, so that they can articulate their progress in ways that alludes to concepts and techniques that have been presented in preceding classes. I also conduct regular structured critiques, and have developed a series of questions so that each student is required to become a part of the critique process, as well as so that each student has to become sensitive, empathetic and thorough in their responses to those questions. I ask them to look forward towards how they use the media and process, not backward (at their so-called “mistakes”).
- I feel that gearing instruction to each individual student is important, and so I strive to know each student’s concerns and strengths, so that they hopefully learn the importance and validity of drawing, painting, printmaking, etc. as it relates to almost every creative discipline. In closing, I encourage – and expect – my students to be knowledgeable, dedicated, positive, aggressive, analytical, passionate, alert, confrontational towards themselves as well as towards what they are seeing, to always question – never settle, and to be aware of the wonder that can be revealed by the creation of a work of honesty, passion and empathy.
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