How I Teach

I love to teach. Teaching is a passion for me. Learning is a passion for me, too, and I have found no better way to learn than the making of art. Years ago, on my first day in class as a teacher, I discovered that I was not only interested in teaching people how to make art, but that I could also share with my students how it is that art can be an opportunity to look more closely at everything. Developing attentiveness, and using materials to explore and interpret what one experiences are the foundations of my approach to teaching.

I would be a teacher even if I couldn't teach art. I am hooked on the exchange of ideas and on the value of the relationships I develop with my students as we share new experiences and reflect on them. My solitary work as a painter immersed in the questions of my discipline gives me the deep knowledge of a subject and of the methodologies used to investigate it that inform the communal act that is education. The rewards of shared insight and renewed inquiry that come out of the classroom sustain me as I ask the seemingly answer-less questions I pursue by myself in my studio.

The guiding principle of my teaching is to engage my students on a variety of levels in the context of a liberal arts education. My intentions are: 1) to immerse my students in the richness and discipline of studio practice, 2) to encourage the emergence of their individual interests, 3) to help them develop critical thinking, and 4) to emphasize the interdependence of academic fields of study. All of these goals contribute to my ultimate desire to help students become more aware of who they are and where they are, in order that they may be able to understand what they want from life, and what they have to offer.

For more information on my teaching philosophy click here.