Teaching, Learning, Exploring
Plymouth Place:
I’ve been teaching art classes at Plymouth Senior Living for almost 4 years. My students range for beginner to active artists. I set up my classes to try and cover arrange of media and techniques to give a creative outlet for my students. Some of my classes consisted of a creative craft class where we’ve worked with fiber arts such as tie dye t-shirts, bleed tissue silk scarves, stamping of fabric. We also have worked on various project using polymer clay from jewelry, clay bowls and ball point pens covered with decorative polymer clay. Recently I did a metal class where we worked in both copper and silver art clays to make jewelry. The sketch book class is a one hour class where we work on drawing exercises and I also teach a 2 hours drawing class where we have explored landscapes, still life, portraits, with soft pastels, oil pastels, watercolor, color pencils, etc. We even did a unit on various types of erasers and how to use them.
RASA (Riverside After School Arts):
After shortly after moving to Riverside I formed after school art classes for children at a near by church which ran for over 10 years. My classes maxed around 25 kids all ranging from 1st-12th graders. Covid put an end of RASA, however I did keep a few of my older students and currently have a hand full of high school kids I’m still teaching. Many of my students have been with me since they were in the 1st grade. They have had exposure to MANY different types of art medium, have gone to museums, outing to draw at the zoo, by the Frank Lloyd Wright studio, trips to museums, and have been a part of gallery exhibits in a local gallery, and much more. One of my recent projects my students designed and constructed a box out of copper then enameled it in a kiln. Summer 2024 my student of 13+ years, Claire Shadduck, who wants to pursue a career as a art therapist, worked with me to design a “mindfulness drawing class” and we presented it Plymouth Senior Living. It was well received and she was even invited back.
Expressions Studio:
I’ve worked with Expressions studio since 1991. Our studio is a small not for profit printmaking studio and creative arts workshop. I’ve been teaching classes to kids and adults, special needs students, disable students, etc both with printmaking and various other art media. We've even had a school for the blind attend a talk about printmaking and the students were able to feel different kinds of plates in the studio and hear the presses working. I’ve been involved with many demonstrations and hands on workshops both in the studio and around the Chicago area showcasing our studio. Recently, I taught a beginning printmaking class. In this class they learned about relief printing, monotypes, and screen printing.
