Partnership between Teaching, Learning, and the Arts

 

"My artistic journey  has allowed me to travel on unique pathways, pause for reflection and creation, and follow a winding and seemingly un-ending trail of learning. Each​​​ day of interaction with friends, strangers, and my students allows me to share the​​​ wonder and impact of art on lives and daily living. My passion is to help my students​​​ release the hidden creative spirit whether through the strokes of a brush, the lines of a pencil, or the Throughout my thirty five years as a college professor teaching Fine Arts and Humanities, I have allowed my students to enter my world of artistic creations.

 

As I teach painting, drawing, and basic design through emphasis on a combination of technique and creativity, my students become engaged, and recognize that hard work and practice produce the masterpieces of their creative minds. My professional art career has provided opportunities to exhibit extensively throughout the United States and abroad. Those relationships and familiarity with museum curators, professional artists, gallery owners, and academics allowed me to expose my students to the wider art world, and to encourage connections through internships and apprenticeships. Only a small percentage of the learning process occurs within the classroom or can be gained from textbooks. The greater proportion occurs as we interact with the forces in our environment—experiential learning. Based on that belief, I encourage my students to explore the fine arts for possible career choices while they broaden their scope by looking at professions affiliated with the arts:  teaching (college, high school, and elementary level), graphic design and its commercial applications, and museum and gallery services.

 

My successes as an artist demonstrate to my students that a career in art is attainable. I emphasize the importance of creative experimentation. Finally, I help my students to understand the importance of resisting the temptation to produce work solely for sale and to avoid compromising the artistic principles by which individual artists develop their body of work. My years of teaching have established a mastery of various academic subjects in Arts Humanities. I can offer my students coverage of the profound movements in art history, including:

 

• Prehistoric Art

 

• Ancient African Civilizations

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• Egyptian Art

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• Greek Art

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• Italian Renaissance Art

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• French Impressionism

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• Art of the Harlem Renaissance

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• Contemporary Art

 

It is important for students, especially art majors, to have a solid art history background to further their basic understanding of the connection between historical art representations, and the art they are themselves creating. Through their daily practice of technique and their assimilation of art history, students develop their own personal styles. However, I have come to understand how to adjust my teaching style on a daily basis; working with the most advanced science students as well as students needing remediation. For those students who are non-art majors, my teaching goal is to increase their cultural awareness and understanding of the art traditions in which I specialize. As the consummate educator, I focus on educating others in the appropriate methodologies for sustaining and developing a love for learning.

 

The profound relationship between teaching and creating art requires honesty, integrity, and creativity in the art instructor. Students respond to this through increased commitment to their learning process. The art world is highly competitive, and I will continue to work with students, helping them to promote their skills in the wide world of the arts. For me, teaching and creating art are vocations married for life. As Stellar Adler suggested, "Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one". -Louis Delsarte

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