Teaching Philosophy

(Draft)

"In my role as an educator, I aim to prepare students for their futures as artists in addition to their future studies. As a young artist, most of my experiences in the contemporary art realm were spent witnessing and conforming to traditionalist ideas of what an artist could be. I was inducted into an artist guild at the age of fourteen, given opportunities to exhibit and learn from accomplished elders that my peers may not have had, yet I rarely encountered art besides painting or drawing. Subjects were commonly landscapes or suburban scenes, which felt pressuring in my own work and practices. 

Going into my college years, I found a similar pattern in the museums and guilds affiliated with the college. I did not hear about contemporary references or current movements in courses often. Sometimes these concepts were discussed, but performance, video, installation, and sculpture pieces were rarely acknowledged. This caused my view of what I could create to continue being constricted. There were ideas in my head that I felt could not be communicated through painting or drawing alone, yet I forced myself to stay within these media because of the pressure that had accumulated. It is my hope as an educator that by exposing students to current movements within the art world, seeing the contemporary processes that push the boundaries of what constitutes or could be classified as art, that they may broaden their horizons and have a more open mind of what they can create and accomplish. 

I would like to foster this idea of exploration within them and their concepts so that if a project may seem out of reach, perhaps beyond their current capabilities or skillset, they will not give up on their vision. As someone who has been in multiple situations where a project seemed to much for what I believed I could accomplish, having a more experienced artist supporting me or giving guidance on how to problem solve these difficulties helped me complete many works that turned far beyond their original conception into something greater. 

Returning to the idea of fostering self-exploration, I believe it is a necessity for students to be aware of artists whose stories are not commonly told. As a member of the LGBT community, it was a rare occurrence for me as I was growing up to hear about gay or trans artists in a historical or contemporary context. Even in my undergrad years, these artists were either overlooked or their identities were not discussed. Uplifting these voices so that students may see artists belonging to marginalized groups creating work while their stories are told is important to me as it is something that can help them feel as if they belong and are represented in the artistic field."