I grew up in Fort Lauderdale and then moved to Baltimore where I studied Illustration and Printmaking at Maryland Institute College of Art. Shortly after I graduated, I moved again to Tallahassee where I attended Florida State University and eventually received a Masters in Art Education. In Tallahassee I met my husband while he was doing an internship at Florida State University. We then moved to Tampa for five years, where I worked as the art teacher Boyette Springs Elementary, Center for Gifted Studies. Just this past summer, my husband and I moved to Nashville, Tennessee. He is a post doctoral researcher at a laboratory in Vanderbilt and I am teaching at St. Edward's School. We are both loving the city and our new positions!
I have worked with several different age groups (High School, Middle School, Elementary School, and PreK). I absolutely love teaching art because students still have an excitement for learning and they are not too self conscious within their artwork yet. Picasso said it quite nicely, "It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a life time to paint like a child." There is a creativity inherently present in children that is sometimes lost with age because we strive to make things look perfect later. Perhaps it was a 6th grade art teacher that told you your drawing did not look enough like the still life, or a kindergarten teacher that told you your clay duck did not like a real duck, we all remember when we thought our art was not good enough. It is important for me to make an impression on my students so that they feel successful in the arts and continue to use creative thinking in their lives after Elementary School. Outside of school, I love the art of cooking, shell collecting, and listening to 80's movies. I am primarily a teacher, but I also continue to make and sell my personal art. Printmaking and mixed media paintings are my favorite ways to work. Staying involved in the artistic process outside of school helps me think creatively in my lessons that I build for the students. |
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