Making a Difference with Art

I don't spend too much sharing how my career as an art teacher and artists influence each other. My students are frequently surprised when they see my art out in the wild and I don't spend much time talking about my professional career as an artist with them. I continue to teach art to students because I believe it's important. It's important to give students a space where they are free to explore ideas, experiment, fail and learn how failure is often the starting point to learning something new. I also believe it's important to provide opportunities for young people to learn how vital art is when creating healthy communities. This year Samm Sarrion and I wrote a grant and with the support of LRAC, we were able to provide an amazing opportunity for our 600 6th grade students. These students worked hard for 2 months cross stitching a 16x12 ft permanent installation of their beloved Mascot Spuddy. This project was meant to be a gift to the community as well as a symbol of our school's diversity and unity. It's on the exterior of the school now and I have to say, they did a great job. It was amazing seeing the big reveal and how proud they all were of their work. We had so much help pulling this off and it's definitely one of the reasons I wanted to be an art teacher and artist. Spreading the art is Spreading the love. The full details are in this article:) https://www.thefmextra.com/middle-schoolers-spuddy-draws-big-crowd/?fbclid=IwZXh0bgNhZW0CMTEAAR1O2CH