Morning • Afternoon
Community Artists as Stewards of Place
This workshop will explore how to use art as a means to make community connections and produce real environmental change. Participants will investigate how to fully comprehend the assets and vulnerabilities of a chosen natural site in order to help save or protect it by garnering community and government support through the arts. The networking and educational workshop models used by the Urban Pond Procession in Providence, RI, will be cited as examples of how to reach key constituents and build awareness around an environmental cause. This workshop will also ask participants to consider what the ultimate goal might be once sufficient awareness is raised and how to continue their personal artistic practice while undertaking a community arts project.
Presenters are key members of the Urban Pond Procession, urbanpondprocession.org. Holly Ewald, founder and artist, has taught art and engaged the public in projects from intimate books to installations for over 30 years. Genise Choy, communications coordinator, supports Providence ¡CityArts! for Youth's free programming through fundraising, event planning, gallery curation and volunteer coordination. Lisa Melmed (RISD 09), teaching artist, works with youth in school and community settings to create in-depth learning using animation, painting and assemblage.
Connecting to the Environment through Photography
In this workshop we'll talk about ways to spark students' learning and help them make artistic and scientific connections to their natural environments. You will learn to bring still and video cameras into scientifically relevant art projects and introduce a new way of seeing nature up close using Macro photography. Participants in this hands-on workshop will become confident with their cameras and be shown a variety of specific curriculum-based projects and resources that utilize photography. (Bring a camera if you have one.)
Craig Norton has been a professional photographer for almost thirty years and has been teaching photography and filmmaking for the past decade. His fine art prints can be seen in galleries and offices all over New England. He is a teaching artist with Young Audiences of CT/VSAarts and uses photography as an expressive art with people with special needs. Four of his students have won national gallery awards.
Lessons Learned from Teaching Artists on Community Building & the Arts
Teaching artists are often asked to work on issues like social justice, student safety, economic development, parent involvement and community building. In this facilitated discussion, we will explore community building strategies within and outside of school walls. We'll share strategies and approaches that have worked; models that lend themselves to community building, ideas for working with schools and communities going through major changes or crises. and challenges we have faced. Together, we will respond to the following questions:
* What leadership skills do teaching artists and partners need to create and sustain communities, beyond the residency project?
* How can a teaching artist plant the seeds for community building in the early planning stages of a residency?
* How do artists, schools and community partners find common ground, share power, define success and build trust?
* Is it ok sometimes to keep a project focused and narrow? Should a teaching artist always be thinking about building community in some way?
* Do teaching artists need training in conflict resolution to do community building work?
* What promotes and nurtures our individual and collective creativity?
Catherine O'Brian is the Coordinator of Arts Education and Arts in Health Care at the New Hampshire State Council on the Arts, where she has served 18 years. She is a poet with an M.A. in Writing and Poetry from the University of New Hampshire, and has completed institutes and training for teaching artists with the Creative Center for People with Cancer, NYC, and the Amherst (MA) Writers and Publishers Project.
Kit Cornell is a professional potter and experienced teaching artist who makes functional pieces in both stoneware and porcelain from her studio in Exeter, NH. Her forms are simple and her glazes complex, resulting from study of many cultures and traditions. Her interests include using local resources, exploring clay as historical record, and ensuring the relevance of art in daily life. Her strong commitment to arts education in general, and clay education in particular may be seen in the sharing of her studio with apprentices and students, traveling to the far corners of the state to teach, and presenting at workshops and conferences.
Making Connections Through Art and Nature
In this workshop participants will explore the challenges of working in an urban community that has had limited exposure to art and the natural environment. We will reflect on the biggest challenges: As teaching artists/educators, how can we make the audience comfortable with natural materials and how can we foster a positive art experience and connection to nature? We'll start with a group activity that will lead to discussion on the sensory experiences of working with materials from nature and how it feels to work within a community on a group project. Participants will also reflect on the challenge of working in an environment that is always changing (weather, insects, puddles and decay) and how to prepare participants to be comfortable with these changes. Teaching artists and educators will walk away with tips on acquiring art materials with a limited art budget; gathering materials that will be of low impact to the environment; and nurturing a connection to nature through art within an urban environment.
Ruth O'Mara has been a visual artist and art educator for the past 20 years, working in public elementary schools as well as community art centers. Her two-dimensional and sculptural work has been represented in contemporary craft galleries along the East Coast and in Italy. As a teaching artist in western Massachusetts, Ruth has been awarded a two-year Artist in Residence grant from the Massachusetts Cultural Council as well as several local cultural council grants.
Clay - The Earth's Connective Tissue
In this workshop we will be playing with clay in response to items from nature, ultimately creating an entire natural environment. Participants will work individually on a series of exercises for the imagination; then we will begin to combine our pieces until all pieces have been integrated into one group environmental sculpture. Participants new to clay will experience a material that, because of its sheer physicality, demands our response through our bodies, not just our thinking minds. Those with prior experience will have an opportunity to let go of the emphasis on technical skill building that many school clay experiences rely upon. All participants will experience an approach to teaching art in response to nature that is readily combinable and/or translatable to other sculptural and two-dimensional materials, to writing and storytelling, and to live performance media such as dance, music, drama, and film. At the end of the session we will talk about the work, the process, and how it connects us to nature, practicing a way to share and reflect that uncovers meanings and supports the validity of each particpant's unique interpretations. This sharing method is suitable for students from early childhood to adults.
Alan Steinberg has been a ceramic artist and teacher for more than 40 years. A founder of the Brattleboro Clayworks, he has studied with many well-known artists and other sages, including Paul Soldner, George Kokis and Paulus Berensohn. He also maintains a practice as a Psychosynthesis Guide. His workshop locals include Rowe Conference Center, Omega at the Crossings in Austin , the League of New Hampshire Craftsmen, the Vermont Leadership Institute, and St John, USVI.
Lessons Learned: Developing the Teaching Artists Certificate Program
This session begins with a focus on the development of the innovative Teaching Artist Certificate program at Philadelphia's University of the Arts and continues with discussion of a new national program for teaching artists. Participants will learn about the Philadelphia program, which includes all the arts -- visual, performing, literary, media, and crafts -- and is designed to build the knowledge and capacity of artists to work alongside teachers and arts specialists in PreK-12 classrooms and community settings. Robert Craig will provide an overview of development and highlights from the first two years, and discuss where the program is headed.
After Robert's presentation, participants will be invited to share their ideas about learning goals and potential course content for teaching artist certificate programs (Lesley University, the Kennedy Center, UMass Arts Extension Service, VSA Massachusetts and NECAP are working together to develop a New England-based program.) The conversation will be facilitated by Diane Daily, Education Program Manager at the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
Robert Craig, the Continuing Education Coordinator at the University of the Arts in Philadelphia, has more than twelve years of educational programming and leadership experience. Working with an instructional design team and a faculty of more than 60 art and design professionals, Robert manages the process of planning, designing, and continuously updating and developing continuing education course and certificate content. Robert holds a BFA and Masters degrees in Art and Education.
Dance of the Earth: Exploring Science through Theater Arts
This session will offer an arts integration approach to teaching earth science based on a long-term collaboration between Enchanted Circle Theater and the Hitchcock Center for the Environment. The workshop will include both theater-arts integration activities and hands-on science explorations that broaden understanding of geologic history and processes and of the pedagogy of arts integration. Priscilla (theater artist) and Ted (naturalist) will share their process of co-creating interdisciplinary curricula, highlighting how this work enhances and inspires learning in classrooms and enriches their own teaching, as well as how it can be transferred to other settings. Time will be devoted to participants' reflection on their experiences and to brainstorming how they can apply these activities to their own teaching settings.
Priscilla Kane Hellweg, executive director of Enchanted Circle Theater, was named Outstanding Artist-in-Residence by the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts in Education. She has directed, performed and taught educational theater extensively throughout New York and New England since 1980. She has developed and implemented multi-year arts integration programming for the Holyoke, Northampton and Springfield Public Schools, and taught Professional Development workshops for school districts and universities throughout New England. Ms. Hellweg is adjunct theater faculty at Hampshire College.
Ted Watt is a naturalist/educator who is intrigued by all aspects of natural history and how the complexities of the natural world support all life forms. He has taught at the Hitchcock Center for the Environment for over 20 years, primarily with elementary students, teachers and the public. He has a bachelor's degree in biology from Earlham College and has worked at four other nature and environmental centers.
Wild Spaces
This workshop explores our experience, interpretation, and understanding of spaces in the natural wilds as metaphor for our lives and as a tool for deepening our relationships with others and with the environment. We'll think about the environment as metaphor for character and personal life experience by looking at passages of writing, participating in writing exercises, and analyzing experiences in the wilds. We will also explore applying the metaphors the environment teaches us through different venues of artistic expression and living. The format will include a slide show, hands-on exercises, a reading example, and time for reflection and sharing. Participants will walk away with tools to apply to their own artistic practices, a deeper connection with the environment, a fire within them to experience the wilds at a more intimate and meaningful level, a deeper understanding of themselves and their sense of "place" in the world, and how to communicate that sense of place. The exercises are user friendly and can be applied to personal practice and unblocking creative channels, as well as in teaching and connecting with others.
Diane Les Becquets is an author and Director, MFA in Fiction and Nonfiction, Southern New Hampshire University
Making Interdisciplinary Connections by Exploring the Work of Contemporary Women Environmental Artists
This session will introduce and explore the work of contemporary women environmental artists. We'll look at women artists in history; examine the social, political and cultural messages found in contemporary environmental art; and explore the interdisciplinary connections that can be made using this genre in classrooms and community settings..
Maria F. Minickiello, D.A., recently completed her dissertation, "Women Environmental Artists: Unearthing Connections and Context." An adjunct instructor of art education and creativity courses at Plymouth State University, she lives in Holderness NH, is a collage artist, and loves to be surrounded by books, animals, and her amazing nieces.
Exploring Site-Specific Art and the Natural World
This workshop will guide participants through a creative process that can be used to engage students in authoring an exploration experience in a natural location and /or in response to a work of art. Participants will learn creative investigation tools of inquiry, game, riddle, and ritual. These tools will be put to action as participants author an exploration experience around the natural surroundings and Mark Ragonese's site-specific sculpture. In creating the exploration experience,
Angela Tillges is an artist and educator who served as Director of Neighborhood Arts Programs for Redmoon, Chicago. She develops creative education partnerships in public schools, social service organizations, and major cultural institutions to engage communities of learners in spectacle making and public art. Angela created Chicago's first-ever Youth Spectacle in partnership with the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum, which brought together over 750 youth city-wide in a curriculum of nature and the city. She has also designed and led public art projects with young people in Donegal Ireland.
