Annual Art Education Conference

Professor and Graduate Coordinator in the Art Education Department at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design. Trained in music and visual arts, she taught elementary and middle school students for 17 years. She is co-author of Studio Thinking from the Start: The K-8 Art Educator’s Handbook (2018), and Studio Thinking2: The Real Benefits of Visual Arts Education (2013, 2^nd Edition). Previously she was the arts researcher on an evaluation study through ABT with the Margaret A. Cargill Foundation (2016-17); served as evaluator of the Art21 Educators’ program (2010-2012) published in Rajan & O’Neal (2017) on Art21’s participatory evaluation; led an assessment initiative at MassArt that resulted in the first set of college-wide graduation goals (2009-2013); served as Co-Principal Investigator on a National Science Foundation quasi-experimental study of potential transfer from visual arts learning to geometric spatial reasoning (2008-2013); and co-led the Studio Thinking Network, a monthly online conversation among US and international educators who use the Studio Thinking Framework (2012-2014). From 1992 – 2018, she conducted research (1992-2000), was Founding Director of The Project Zero Classroom Summer Institute (1996-2005), and was a Principal Investigator (2001-2011) at Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education. In addition to the Studio Thinking research (2001 – 2003), funded by the JP Getty Trust, she led research as a PZ-PI on a research and professional development project in Alameda County, CA, funded by successive US Department of Education grants (2003-2011); collaboratively conducted ten meta-analytic reviews with Dr. Ellen Winner analyzing the effects of arts learning on academic outcomes, funded by the Bryant Family Foundation (1997-2000); and served as Co-Principal Investigator on Qualities of Quality: Understanding Excellence in Arts Education (2005-2008), funded by the Wallace Foundation. Currently, she is a co-PI on a 4-year NSF funded project integrating art with the science of extreme weather: Cool Science: Art as a Vehicle for Intergenerational Learning.

John Howell White is Professor of Art Education in the Department of Art Education at Kutztown University. He earned his M.F.A. from Pratt Institute and his Ph.D. from The Pennsylvania State University. He is the author of Experience Painting, a Davis textbook for secondary art students. In 2012 he was named the National Higher Education Art Educator of the Year and in 2009 the Pennsylvania Higher Education Art Educator of the Year. He has conducted research and published extensively about the history and philosophy of art education. He has served as Director of the Higher Education Division of the National Art Education Association and Chair of the National Art Education Association’s Research Commission, the Department of Art Education, Kutztown University, and the Council for Policy Studies in Art Education. Dr. White taught secondary level for 13 years in Pittsburgh, PA and Los Angeles, CA.

He has recently shown at: The Works Gallery (2019), NYC; Archer Law Gallery 35 (2019), Philadelphia, PA;  Provincetown Art Association and Museum (2018), Provincetown, MA;  In-Liquid (2017), Philadelphia, PA;  Jefferson Hospital (2017), Philadelphia, PA; , The Cotuit Center for the Arts (2016), Cotuit, MA;  and Maryland Hall (2014), Annapolis, MD. His studio is currently based in Philadelphia.

White writes this about his most recent show Ghost Stories: Paintings inhabit the world in ways, through time, reference, and ambiance, that are distinct from the workings of film and photography. Even realistic paintings hover about unattached to their referents. Paintings then, like ghosts, confront viewers through their impact and haunt them through excluded information, they conjure an absence, which ferments attachments and invites future visitations. This group of oils, acrylics, egg temperas, and watercolors, are the result of this affective quality of paintings. 

Tim Betz is an instructor of art history at Kutztown University, where he specializes in art of the Spanish Atlantic World. He received his BFA in studio art from Kutztown University, a master’s in art history specializing in the Italian Renaissance from Penn State University, and a master’s in History specializing in Colonial Mexico from Lehigh University. He is currently working on his PhD on Colonial Mexico from Lehigh University, specializing in collecting and the formation of museums in the Spanish Empire. In addition to teaching at Kutztown, he is the Executive Director of the Morgan Log House, an eighteenth-century historic site in Lansdale, PA. He is particularly interested in learning about historical techniques of making, from the working methods of Renaissance artists, to Mexican feather-working and twentieth century sign writing.  In addition to this, he produces his own art, tends bees, and brews beer based on historic recipes.

Leslie Friedman is an artist and educator who specializes in printmaking, sculpture, and installation. She has a BA in political theory from Brown University and an MFA in printmaking from the Tyler School of Art at Temple University. Friedman is an active player in the alternative gallery world. She founded the art collective NAPOLEON in 2011 which is comprised of ten artist and curatorial members with a gallery space in Philadelphia’s Chinatown. She is currently a member of Good Children in New Orleans and Baton Rouge Gallery in Baton Rouge. In 2014, Friedman completed a fellowship at the Center for Emerging Visual Artists and won the Fleisher Wind Challenge. Friedman attended residencies in Japan at Shiro Oni the summer of 2018 and MASS MoCA in the summer of 2019. Her work has been exhibited nationally and internationally with some highlights including solo shows at Space 1026 in Philadelphia, Millsaps College in Jackson, Mississippi, and the Delaware Contemporary in Wilmington. Political and social themes like identity, simulacra, stereotype, gender, and religion pervade Friedman’s work.

Dr. Leslie Gates is an Associate Professor of Art Education at Millersville University of Pennsylvania, where she teaches undergraduate and graduate courses and supervises teacher candidates. In 2017, Leslie was named the Pennsylvania Art Educator of the Year. Leslie lives in Lancaster, PA with her husband and two children.

 Leslie’s artist books and text-based sculptures deal with a range of issues related to sacred objects. Her work, which often explores the question of how something is rendered sacred, asks the viewer to consider the sacred in everyday lived experiences. Her books elevate experiences to sacred memory: discarded fuzzies from her daughter’s blanket memorialize the daily liturgy of putting children to bed, a tragic experience as a Title IX reporter yields work about the sacred nature of confidentiality, and an altered book calls into question sacred truths of teaching in the 1880s. More recently, Leslie has expanded notions of the sacred in work that addresses a number of contemporary conundrums. 

Janna Gregonis has twenty years of experience as a jeweler and educator. She is a studio artist and has taught at the 92nd Street Y (NYC), Peters Valley (NJ), Kutztown University (PA), St. John’s University (NYC), Penland School of Craft (NC). Exhibitions include: Munich Jewelry Week (Germany), Milton J. Weil Gallery (NYC), Velvet da Vinci (San Francisco) and she is in the collections of: Museum of the Brazilian Object (Brazil) and Fleur Bresler (US).  Janna has also spent many years working in the design world at moss and the Cooper Hewitt National Design Museum.

DELANE INGALLS VANADA, PH.D.

Prior to teaching at the Kutztown University, Dr. Ingalls Vanada has been an assistant professor of art education at University of Florida, Boston University, University of North Carolina at Charlotte (UNCC), SCAD, and Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. She was the founding director of Art Connects!, a contemporary art integration symposium, and Inquiry to Practice, a working group of K-20 artist/teacher/researchers who engage in arts-based research and link theory to practice.

Her research focuses on instructional approaches and environments that enhance individual’s thinking, learning mindsets, and creativity in the arts; innovative methods for teacher preparation, including design thinking; and a/r/tography. Delane has published her work in journals including International Journal of Arts Education, Arts Research International, and Journal of Art for Life. She has conducted educational research in Finland and Denmark and presented her work in the United States, Greece, the United Kingdom, and Norway. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of Denver, an M.Ed. in Curriculum and Instruction from Lesley University, and a B.S. in Apparel Design, Illustration and Technology from Purdue University. In 2004, Delane received NAEA’s Elementary Educator of the Year award for the Pacific Region.

Kachina Martin is a nationally recognized fiber artist who teaches studio art and art history at Muhlenberg High School.  Her work was included in the Lark publication 500 Felt Objects and referenced in Uncovering Fashion: Fashion Communications Across the Media.  She earned a B.A. in English and French with an Art History minor at Albright College; she received her Master’s in Art History from Temple University.  She is currently completing her MFA at the University of the Arts.  In addition to her work as a public educator, Kachina has also lectured at St. Francis University, Albright College, La Salle University, Philadelphia University, and Temple University.  Kachina has participated in numerous educational travel programs, enabling her to study in Europe, Japan, Turkey, Bahrain and Qatar; she will be returning to Kyoto this summer with the National Consortium for Teaching about Asia (NCTA) to further her studies in textiles.  Kachina maintains a studio at the GoogleWorks Center for the Arts, and you can see her work at www.kachinaleigh.com.   

Rick Salafia received his BFA from the University of Rhode Island and his MFA from Rutgers.  He has taught at Lehigh University, Carleton College, and Bucknell University. He is a sculptor, photographer, videographer and woodworker and teaches Foundation Design, Digital Media and Graduate Studio classes at Kutztown University.  His work has been exhibited nationally and is in the collection of The Museum of Contemporary Art in San Diego.  He has received a Pollock Krasner Foundation grant and a Pennsylvania Council on the Arts Fellowship

gwendolyn yoppolo uses words, ceramic objects, and food to stretch boundaries and transform perception.  She creates kitchen- and table-wares that use the physical experience of hunger and satiation to allude to larger issues of human desire and relationship.  Her visionary designs challenge us to rethink the ways we nourish ourselves and others within contemporary food culture.  She earned an MFA in Ceramics from Penn State University, an MA in Education from Columbia University, and a BA in Sociology from Haverford College.  A passionate educator, writer, and researcher as well as a maker, gwendolyn yoppolo is currently serving as Assistant Professor of Ceramics at Kutztown University.  Her writing can be found in Studio Potter, Pottery Making Illustrated, and Passion and Pedagogy.