About
I am an artist-educator living and working in central Maine. I currently teach visual art at Warsaw Middle School in Pittsfield, Maine to students in grades 5–8. I have a broad range of teaching experiences, including implementing an international youth art exchange between students in Ghana and the United States, teaching drawing to international high school students, and working as an elementary art teacher. I have recently developed a passion for bookbinding and have launched a small business to sell my crafts. I enjoy a variety of arts and crafts, including basket weaving, sewing, printmaking, and painting. In addition to my artistic and educational pursuits, I enjoy being outdoors and spending time with friends and family.
I attended Wheaton College and graduated magna cum laude in 2009 with a double major in Studio Art and African, African American and Diaspora Studies. I went on to attend the Maine College of Art's Post Baccalaureate Art Education program from 2010–2011, where I earned the credentials that enabled me to obtain my Maine State Teaching Certificate. I continue to take graduate courses in education in order to grow as an educator and satisfy my ongoing thirst for knowledge. I am excited to be completing the Post-Bacc to Masters Pathway through Maine College of Art & Design to earn my Master of Arts in Teaching.
Gallery
Artist Statement
As I settled in to create this series of prints, I noticed my physical being pushing back. My chest pounded with a dull ache and my mind raced with worried thoughts. "Don’t I sort of suck?" "What do I have to say anyway?" "My art always looks the worst." "What if I forget how to make anything?" I sat cross legged on the floor in front of my coffee table, functionally procrastinating by spending more than enough time sharpening the gouges that I hadn’t used since my Studio Art days in college, more than a decade ago. My anxious response was one that I'd come to expect in uncertain situations, especially when meeting someone new.
The difference here is that I was meeting myself. At this time. Post. And I was about to dig in.
As an artist-educator, I believe in the power of art as a portal for self-expression. Art can be a gateway to self-knowing, but only if you are an open and active participant. This series of woodblock relief prints, entitled Exploration and Reflection, expresses the criticality of active and deliberate self-exploration and self-reflection in the journey towards self-knowledge. Through the diptych, I simultaneously juxtapose and harmonize the dual conditions of my spirit, creating a path wherein I exist as both an adventurous explorer, looking beyond, and a steady keeper of familiar surroundings, looking within. This duality of being has plagued me endlessly as I struggle to exist with a set of values that sometimes seems diametrically opposed: I strive to reach new peaks, but I’ve trodden deep roots. I can see myself in my work, and I can imagine myself in this moment that I have created, at peace with nature- at peace with my natural state.
My creative process allowed space and time for these themes to emerge. While I did not fully know at first what my art would end up saying, I knew I would be exploring and reflecting throughout my initial brainstorming in my visual journal and in my carving. As an avid hiker, I selected imagery inspired by nature and, specifically, my hiking experiences. I felt it would be the easiest language for me to work with in order to translate my spirit to my cognition. I chose to work in woodblock relief printing because I had the supplies readily available and experience with this medium. I took a cue from the American artist Swoon and drew directly onto my blocks, using my gouges to interpret the drawing along the way. This led to greater flexibility and a discourse between the wood and myself.
Throughout this course, MAT800: The Artist as Educator, I encountered invaluable opportunities to explore my identity in the context of artist-educator. Through reading responses, self-reflections, visual journaling, and collegial dialogue, I began to connect with my personal struggle, or the barriers that keep me from producing art in my adult life (mainly my internal critic, which makes everything look ugly). I recognized that, while I work to facilitate learning opportunities for my students to examine and express their experiences through art, I wasn’t affording myself the same space and grace to create, learn, and grow. Fulfilling my final project by creating Exploration and Reflection have helped me break that cycle of closing my eyes to self-discovery. As long as I continue to create, I can see who I am.