Connect & Collaborate - Emerging Trends in Art Education

Our 80th Annual Art Education Conference is dedicated to timely topics that fuel best practices in art education through hands-on workshop sessions and speakers. Topics will include STEAM, Art & Literacy, Technology, Advocacy and more…offering art educators a chance to connect, share and collaborate. In the spirit of “keeping it local” this conference will feature many speakers from our own Kutztown University Art Education Community and highlight how the sharing of ideas can lead to great change.

Keynote Speaker: Dr. Marilyn Stewart

Keynote - Alumni Auditorium
Where the Road Meets the Rubber: Reflections on Art Education in Practice at KU and Beyond

Emerita Professor Dr. Marilyn Stewart will share her perspective on art education at Kutztown University, noting some of the ideas and practices that have cycled through the past several decades and have found their way into art education settings at home and beyond. Looking forward, Dr. Stewart will comment on contemporary art education ideas and practices that appear to hold promise for our future.

Marilyn Stewart retired in May 2017 as Professor of Art Education and Co-coordinator of Graduate Programs in Art Education at Kutztown University, where she was the 2016 recipient of the University’s Arthur and Isabel Wiesenberger Faculty Award for Excellence in Teaching. Dr. Stewart is senior author of Explorations in Art grades 1-6, and co-author, with Eldon Katter, of the Explorations in Art middle school series, co-author of Rethinking Curriculum in Art, author of Thinking Through Aesthetics, and Editor of the Art Education in Practice series, all published by Davis Publications. She is a frequent keynote speaker and consultant in national curriculum projects, including her recent work as Director of The Dinner Party Curriculum Project and Coordinator of the Educator Guides Project for the PBS series, Craft in America. A member of the Writing Team for the National Visual Arts Standards and the Model Cornerstone Assessments, she has conducted over 200 extended institutes, seminars, or in-service days in over 35 states. A Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association, Marilyn was named by the NAEA as the 2011 National Art Educator of the Year.

Super Session
Lisa J. Lucas
Practicing Presence: Creating a Culture of Wellness & Collaboration

This experiential session will utilize evidence-based research to explore how a well-trained mind can support a culture of engaged students and educators. Key to engagement is the recognition of the importance of self-care. If we want a culture of wellness, it is essential to cultivate our own healthy habits and routines so that we can connect more authentically with our students, collaborate more mindfully with our colleagues, and manage our stress more effectively so that teaching and learning is fulfilling and joyful. Want less stress and more ease? Practice Presence!

Dr. Lisa J. Lucas has decades of experience in education, as a teacher, instructional coach, administrator, consultant and is currently a Professor at West Chester University of Pennsylvania. She has experience in public, private, parochial, and pre-school settings. In her current role as a teacher educator she has developed practical self-care and stress reduction strategies for educators that integrate mindfulness and social-emotional learning. Dr. Lucas is the author of Practicing Presence: Simple Self-Care Strategies for Teachers published by Stenhouse Publishers. She works with educators to explore how to elevate engagement in the workplace by establishing habits and routines to cultivate attention, self-awareness and emotion regulation. For more information about Lisa see: www.practicingpresence.life

Workshop
Liz Hamilton Quay
[Transfer]mation

In this hands-on workshop, we will transform uninspired cloth into a one-of-a-kind, collaborative piece of art! Learn how to take your designs from paper to fabric through a variety of image transfer techniques. Working as a group, your individual creations will be integrated to make a unified surface design on cloth.

Liz Hamilton Quay Bio

Liz Hamilton Quay is the Assistant Professor of Textile and Materials Studies at Kutztown University. She followed her passion for the manipulation of fabric to earn her MFA at Tyler School of Art in Philadelphia in Fibers and Materials Studies. Her journey began at Kutztown University, where she proudly received her bachelor’s degree in Art Education and a BFA in Craft, concentrating in Fibers. Her creative approach is based on her natural curiosity for materials and a joy for making. Through a variety of techniques ranging from traditional fibers to digital formats such as video, she creates work that explores innate visceral feelings.

Workshop
Kris Tuerk
Visual Literacy and the Accordion Book Room

Visual Literacy encourages connections through integrated approaches of teaching in all content areas. Art and Nature Observational skills provide meaningful and purposeful strategies for teaching design thinking, color theories, reflection and how to implement our natural surroundings to illustrate our world. Visual Literacy arises from our ability to see things from many different angles. In this double session, you will be creating your own accordion book and learning to refresh your skills of being an explorer in our natural world. Join us to practice the power of observation. Take time and come to a place with the creativity that comes from allowing the soul to blossom in its own colors and shapes. The deeper you go to find your true self, the more poetic your language and ideas become.
Come. And. Play.

Kris Tuerk Bio

Kris Tuerk has taught art at Kutztown Middle School for the past 13 years. For the 10 years prior to that, she designed and taught the Alternative Education Program for at-risk students grades 7-12 at Kutztown High School. Teaching life through artistic endeavors encourages the importance of relevancy as a means to assist her students to be reflective, inquiry-based learners. Having a life’s passion for educating herself, she received her B.S. Art Ed., 1984, B.F.A. in Crafts/Textiles, 1994, M.Ed. Art Education, 2009, all from Kutztown University, and 51 professional credits beyond her masters while being a single mom of 2 grown men, Justin and Ryan Tuerk. A native of Philadelphia, she’s found her home in Kutztown. Tuerk is the recipient of KU Sharadin/Schaeffer Alumni Award, 2017 and PAEA Outstanding Middle-Level Art Educator, 2012. She is also the Kutztown Strong-Cougar Chronicle Editor. Tuerk supports collaborative engagements with Kutztown University through student observations, early-field students and teacher candidate students where both university level and middle-level students work together to have fun and learn through ART. Her latest collaborative work has been with the entire student body (6th-8th grade students) and the entire team of 8th grade teachers to implement Project Based Learning across multiple subjects. Each student studied The Saucony Marsh and the Critical Zone in their Science class, then created their own accordion book in art class. Students created their own story utilizing the data collected and drawing from their own personal experience. The latest evolution in Tuerk’s personal artistic journey has been a deepening relationship with her Garden as it relates to the last 6 years of textile work she’s pursued at KU. The Garden helps her to redefine and recreate herself. It eliminates and dissolves old patterns. It brings about stimulating platforms to consider, critique and improve her art form, color, texture and painting with live plants. It plays the role of companion; it’s seasonal and has a temperament of its own. It helps her learn to accept decisions and direct her attention differently. Her current venture is creating natural dyes directly from those plants within the Garden itself used to dye various fabrics and yarns from which she continues to create abundant art.

Workshop
Delaney DeMott
Community Natural Dye Workshop

This natural dye workshop focuses on the upcycling/renewal of old clothing through naturally derived dye stuff. There will be a focus on the communal history of natural dye in this area and the use of natural dye as an alternative to environmentally harmful synthetic dyes. The workshop will encourage advocacy for the environment by keeping used clothing out of landfills, teaching alternative dye techniques using native plants and highlighting the histories of handcraft in our community.

Delaney DeMott Bio

Delaney DeMott is an artist/educator whose work highlights the “hiccups” that contribute to one’s lived experience. Originally from Philadelphia, Delaney received her BFA from Tyler School of Art, Temple University and her MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago where she continued teaching after graduation. She is currently an adjunct assistant professor at Tyler School of Art and Kutztown University and teaches community-driven workshops at the Banana Factory in Bethlehem and Goggleworks in Reading, PA. Delaney has received many awards, residencies, and acknowledgments for her work in both the arts and education. Delaney DeMott’s work and lecture series have toured institutions such as American University, Concordia University, University of Chicago, Delta College, Indiana University, SUNY Buffalo State and Beijing Normal University.

Workshop
Professor George Graf
Collaborative Design - Working From Models

This workshop explores teamwork and finding each participant’s greatest value in a group production situation through the design and building of a wooden sculpture. After viewing examples, each person will create their own model using popsicle sticks and hot glue. The participants will be divided into smaller groups and each group will select one model to build on a larger scale.

The participants will have group discussions about design concepts, construction methods, best practices, and safety. Participating in this workshop will involve the use of power tools and hand tools. All the materials are included. Bring your cameras to record the final examples in the event that you may want to try this project in the classroom.

George Graf Bio

George Graf teaches two-dimensional and three-dimensional design in the Freshman Foundations area and craft design. He envisions his teaching as having two basic goals: to offer the freshman projects that enable them to understand basic design as it applies directly to their own artistic voices and to welcome the new art students who have chosen Kutztown University and to make them feel that they belong to KU’s artistic community. Graf’s career began with handbuilding ceramic forms, which led him to becoming a production potter. He earned a B.F.A. with an emphasis in ceramics in 1986 and then an M.F.A. in design from the University of Kansas in 1989. Graf continued working as a production potter until the mid-90’s, gradually transitioning into more conceptual work. His recent works are found object assemblages that playfully deconstruct the cult of materialism and consumerism, and point out its absurdity. As part of Graf’s critique, he has focused on constructing musical instruments from trash, even designing and engineering new types. Graf shows his work regionally, nationally, and internationally.

Session
Amy Migliore
The Learning Portfolio: Utilizing the Power of Digital Presentation Spaces to Foster Student Success

This session will surround the National Core Arts standards, highlighting the potential of involving students in the standard of Presentation. How can secondary students become partners in developing a personalized learning portfolio that shows their growth and emerging artistic self? What are the benefits of collecting and/or presenting evidence of both formative efforts and summative results? Using Practice-based research about learning in the arts, and developing creative selves, the workshop leader will facilitate a collective discussion about presentation and possibilities for involving students in the process of creating a digital portfolio. Attendees will be encouraged to share their experiments and successful attempts in this area as part of the collaborative focus of the workshop.

Amy Migilore Bio

Amy Migliore brings her enthusiasm about learning in the arts to the workshop. She brings 20 years of experience teaching art education, five years as a freelance educational consultant for Crayola, six years of acting as the chair of Design Education for PAEA, and offers resources about creative learning gleaned from her graduate work as a doctoral candidate in Art Education at Penn State University.

Session
I Found my Muse on eBay.
Kevin McCloskey

Antique prints inspire Kevin McCloskey's illustrated natural history books for children. The NY Times called his books "stylish comics-inflected early readers" and "a winning combination of facts and gross-out fun." He is at work on his fifth book with editor and art director Françoise Mouly of TOON Books.

Kevin McCloskey Bio

Kevin McCloskey teaches illustration in the Communication Design Dept. at Kutztown. He is the author and illustrator of the acclaimed ‘Giggle and Learn’ series of hardcover comics for children published by Toon Book. The NY Times called his 2015 book, We Dig Worms! “a winning combination of facts and gross-out fun.” His worm book was followed by The Real Poop on Pigeons, 2016, Something’s Fishy, 2017, and coming in 2018, Snails Are Just My Speed. All of his Toon books are edited and designed by Françoise Mouly, art editor of The New Yorker magazine. McCloskey is a frequent visitor to area libraries and elementary schools. He has traveled the country from the Franklin Institute, Philadelphia to the California Academy of Sciences sharing fascinating facts about common creatures. He blogs at www.illustrationconcentration.com

Session
Concept & Inquiry-Based Learning
Benjamin Hoffman

With an interest in concept-based learning, students are being exposed to material that is focused on large, transferable ideas that transcend time and place. With inquiry-based learning, students may explore topics that are not directly covered in class and develop inquiries for themselves. Participants will develop an inquiry-based lesson, research a desired topic, present what they’ve learned, and reflect on the process (all skills that encompass an inquiry-based lesson).

Benjamin Hoffman Bio

Benjamin Hoffman, a graduate of Kutztown University, is now entering his third year as the Visual Arts teacher at Kutztown Area High School. Throughout the course of the year, Benjamin is responsible for all visual arts classes, which include, but are not limited to Drawing & Painting, Ceramics, Digital Photography, Sculpture, Art History and Art Studio. With a deep interest in the Studio Habits of the Mind, Hoffman is excited to share his success with concept-based learning and how those experiences have helped shape the interactive and collective studio environment that is his classroom. In addition to serving as a regional representative within the Pennsylvania Art Education Association, Hoffman is pursuing his master’s in Art Education at Kutztown University.

Session
STEAM – Bringing STEAM to Life
Andrea Usner

This session will focus on the emerging trend of the integration of STEM into the elementary/middle school art classroom. Classroom STEAM: The Integration Foundation Model (Investigate, Discover, Connect, Create, Reflect) created by Susan Riley will be explored. Participants will investigate various ideas about ways in which to bring STEAM to life in their classroom. There will be will an opportunity to take part in hands-on activities while gaining a deeper understanding of how art making is problem- solving and high-level thinking.

Andrea Usner Bio

Andrea Usner is a graduate of Kutztown University where she received her Bachelor’s and Master’s degree in Art Education. Currently, she is teaching art at Oley Valley Elementary School in Oley, PA and recently taught as an adjunct professor at Kutztown University in the Art Education & Crafts Department. She has been teaching for 25 years and has taught at various grade levels. Andrea resides in the Oley Valley with her loving husband, son, and dog.

Session
Eliseo Rivera
Framing Bodies: Identity and Surveillance in the Age of Hypervisibility

What is the difference between public and private identity? How does hypervisibility in the age of social media influence our private life? How can photography help frame our own narratives? How do we use photography to generate inclusiveness, empowerment and empathy? This workshop will be a presentation and discussion on an in-progress lesson Mr. Rivera will have with his middle school photography students. The lesson is focused on the forms in which surveillance has allowed people to be identified, classified, and dispossessed through the past and present with the progression of technology (i.e. data collecting, social media). The lesson then moves on to explore how in the history of photography, the camera (sometimes through the very same method of surveillance) has been used as a tool for reframing the body— forming personal identity and building empathy for marginalized people. Students will then practice ways to address these issues by experimenting with technology and the camera to create works that engage with personal identity as well as generate empathy, inclusion, and empowerment for marginalized people.

Eliseo Rivera Bio

Session
Celebrating “Happy Mistakes” in the High School Art Room
Barbara Resto

Unless you are teaching in a bubble, as an art educator you have most likely been frustrated with those students who don’t think they can, so they don’t even try. In this session, you will learn techniques on how to provide a safe environment that celebrates making those happy mistakes and how to create a space where students can fail in order to succeed.

Barbara Resto Bio

Barbara Resto is a 2001 Kutztown University graduate and has been teaching art at the high school level for sixteen years in the Catasauqua Area School District. Prior to becoming an art educator, she worked in the social work field as a youth advocate. She is certified to teach ESL and holds a certificate in Leadership from Lehigh University. In addition to her teaching duties she was a Class Advisor, Students Against Destructive Decisions (SADD) advisor, served ten years as the Yearbook Advisor and currently sits on Catasauqua High School’s Student Improvement Team, School Climate Committee, and is an actively involved in the Student Assistance Program. She was awarded B104’s Teacher of the Month in May 2009. In 2015 she was the recipient of the Howard L. Klopp Exemplary Teacher Award from Cedar Crest College and recognized as an “Outstanding Student Teacher Mentor” from Kutztown University in 2018 for her dedication to willingly serve as a Co-operating Teacher.

Session
New approaches to Public Art Here and Now
Beth Krumholz

At the center of the concept of Creative Placemaking is observing, listening to, and asking questions of the people who live, work, and play in a particular space in order to understand their needs and aspirations for that space and for their community as a whole. With this knowledge, we can come together to create a common vision for that place. The vision can evolve quickly into an implementation strategy, beginning with small-scale “Lighter Quicker Cheaper” improvements that bring immediate benefits both to the spaces themselves and the people who use them.

Beth Krumholz Bio

Beth Krumholz is a Berks County native. She is a practicing artist, poet and community arts activist. She has worked in the field of alternative art education for over 20 years, having designed and implemented innovative arts programs from the east coast to the west coast, including at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art and the 92nd Street Y in New York City. She earned a BFA from the California College of Arts & Crafts and an MFA from the University of Iowa, with her focus on studio art and art history. She is certified in Visual Thinking Strategies and brings that pedagogy to her art education programs. Beth and her son Jacob live in a small farmhouse in Oley where they love to watch the fireflies at night lighting up the cornfields. Jacob was a wonderful assistant on her latest community arts initiative, Marquee Poetry, which brought over a dozen poems to marquees around the county for National Poetry month. In Beth’s “spare time” she loves to collect folk art, visit waterfalls and experiment with Indian cooking.

Session
Working Collaboratively with the Special Education Teacher and Paraprofessional in the Art Classroom
Karen Rosenburg
Wendy Finchen

This session is for new and preservice teachers, and anyone else who is interested in learning successful strategies on how to work with special education teachers and paraprofessionals to benefit the special needs student in their classrooms.

Karen Rosenburg Bio

Karen Rosenburg has been teaching art for over 22 years. She currently teaches visual arts and ceramics at New Hope-Solebury High School in New Hope, PA where she is also the District Special Area Curriculum Liaison. She received her B.A. in Art Education from Kutztown University and her M.A. in Art Education with an Emphasis in Special Populations from Moore College of Art and Design. Karen is also the PAEA Special Needs in Art Education Chair and the 2018 PAEA Outstanding Special Needs Art Educator. She lives in Newtown, PA with her husband, 11-year-old triplets, and 2 chocolate Labradors.

Wendy Finchen Bio

Wendy Finchen has been working in education for 25 years. She currently works with special education students in the Intensive Learning Center of New Hope-Solebury High School as an Instructional Assistant. Previously she worked as a third-grade classroom teacher in a small private school located in Philadelphia, PA. She received her B.S. in Elementary Education from Cairn University and her M.S. in Education and Special Education Certification from Holy Family University. Wendy lives in Trevose, PA with her husband, her son when he is home from the Army, and her cat Del.