When I went to art school, people often asked me, “What are you going to do when you graduate? Be an art teacher?”
I typically answered them with an emphatic, “NO!” I had no interest in becoming an art teacher. I simply wanted to create things myself. At that time, I also had little interest in working with kids.
Now,some 30 years later, I have been testing the waters of art education, and I have recently been seen scurrying through the hallways of some local schools with bags of art materials.
What’s going on?
First of all, a lot of things have changed in my life over 30 years. Much of that time was spent working with children as a counselor, so I moved past my youthful aversion to working with kids.
Second, through my counseling career and other life experiences, I found a second calling in “teaching” from a philosophical perspective, with adults and children.
My recent foray into art education comes from my philosophical leanings more than it does from a desire to teach art techniques, but teaching art has a way of expanding the curriculum beyond technical skills. The more educational experiences that I take on, I find myself very energized the interaction with both adult and child students. It is opening up an entirely new creative direction for me, which I will share more about in future posts.
I recently held a workshop in my home studio on creating pet portrait paintings, and I had an amazing time. For 6 hours, I worked with 6 students who, for the most part, had very little arts training. The portraits they created were BEAUTIFUL, and the all day experience with them was so much fun for all of us! I enjoyed encouraging them to try new things that, at first did not make sense, but as they proceeded, brought them to a new level of understanding.
I decided that day that I would do another workshop. I had planned to do it after the holiday season, however, one of the participants asked if I would do it around Thanksgiving so some of her homecoming family members could participate. So, I moved it up. It is now scheduled for Black Friday, November 28, 2014. You can read more about the workshop here.
I look forward to doing more workshops like this one in the future. I also am thoroughly enjoying working in some local schools with preschool, elementary and middle school students. More about that soon!
Life is an Adventure!
BZTAT