I enjoy and greatly benefit from teaching. For me, helping students to explore their own creativity and investigate new processes always leads to an improved clarity and a sense of renewal in my own artistic pursuits. I view the classroom as the vessel of knowledge and inquiry from which teachers and students emerge as both better teachers and better students. Art education, when successful, hones imagination and perception. Curriculum must challenge students to observe, to critique and to invent.

My key objective in an instructional setting is to ensure that my students develop a strong base of technical capabilities and analytical skills while also building their conceptual thinking. To this end, I believe that students need to work with a variety of materials, methods and forms that lead to a discovery of the means that best suits their needs in articulating their own artistic vision. This approach requires that students actively expand themselves in creative processes, allowing them to learn and master techniques through setbacks as well as triumphs. During this journey of personal development and self-discovery, I believe that my students come to appreciate that the expression of creativity melds their thinking, emotions and process. This will lead them to find their own true identity as an artist.

In my teaching experience, I worked with classes that ranged from beginning to advanced, comprised of both young and adult students. I emphasize the technical aspects of the medium I teach as a foundation for the curriculum. From here I work individually with each student, analyzing their adeptness at process, as well as their ability to think conceptually. These two do no always develop concurrently. I consider each students needs individually. Through personal and group critiques students are able to gain input from peers and seasoned artists. This also gives students the opportunity to build their skills in articulating their ideas and concepts. I believe it is important to give constructive criticism. This includes praise as well as a more critical interpretation of the work.   My overriding concern is to instill in my students the idea that they can have the power to invent, create and change the world around them. Spending time looking at our world, asking questions about why it exists in that form, and then proposing for alternatives is, to my mind, the very heart of an art education.