Why teach art?  To me, teaching art is the most logical way to liberate and inspire young minds.  Art is inherently interdisciplinary since it draws directly from the myriad experiences that consist of our lives.  To me, the discipline of art is a way of thinking, a process of posing multiple answers to the same question.  It is also the way to create more compelling questions to answer.  Creative expression and problem solving, which lies at the core of the artistic practice, is something I would like to share with my students.  The art that we make is not only about the object of art, but the process of making.

As the painter Kandinsky once said, “There is no must in art, because art is free.”  It is this search for freedom that lies at the heart of my practice as a teacher and as an artist.  A good teacher should impart on her students an embrace of their own creative intuition.  When students come up to me and ask, “does this look right?”, I always reply, “What do YOU think?”  Too often students perform the tasks of schooling solely to fulfill the needs of the teacher, to please the teacher.  In my classroom, I try my hardest to counter that.   Picasso once said, “All children are artists.  The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.” My task is to acknowledge, nurture, and challenge this natural curiosity and creativity by providing relevant, inspiring, and fun opportunities for expression.