About me

Art is everywhere. Can you See it?

Complex Feeling

Art is a way to express complex feelings, and I aim to give my students ways to do so. We all have multiple, complex emotions going on in our minds and hearts, and we don’t always have a good way of organizing them. Especially when we’re young. I believe that art is a great tool we can use to help with that, if we know how to make it work. I became a teacher to help arm kids with the skills to use such a tool.

Infinite Diversity in Infinite Combinations

“Infinite diversity in infinite combinations”. Is my primary philosophy. I believe that in this world, our greatest strength as a community comes from our diversity. Our differences combine to create meaning and beauty. We don’t have all the right answers to the world’s problems, ourselves. It takes multiple points of view, and multiple talents, to make the world a better place. I support different cultures, opinions, thoughts, and ideas in my classroom. There have been many times when a student has come up with something regarding one of my projects that was a better way of doing things as a direct result of this diversity.

Acceptance

I believe that every child deserves a warm, calming, and welcoming presence in their lives. Just as art enriches our lives, I want to be there to enrich the lives of my students. I do that by helping them when they need it, being proud of them when they accomplish something, and generally helping them know that they are loved, and accepted for who they are. We owe it to the future to leave the world a better place than we found it, and we do this by teaching our children kindness and understanding. I do my best to demonstrate this as a role model for all of my students.

Over the course of my career, I have gifted the chance to work with many mediums from digital painting, to video production, animation, Interactive and participatory art, 3D modeling, art book making, and a personal favorite of mine, which I have spent probably the most time working with: print. My experiences have been deep and vary widely. Over the course of my life, I have danced with Ko-Thi, an African dance company, Dnipro Ukrainian Dance Ensemble. I have been all over the world, and been blessed with the world coming to me, with numerous foreign exchange students becoming part of my family when I was growing up. Diversity is a key pillar of my philosophy, not just with life, but art, too. In 2019, I spent 5 months building trails in Maine, which helped me appreciate the beauty in nature, and helped me see the art that Mother Nature, herself, graced us with.