My teaching philosophy is to strengthen self-permission, curiosity, artistic research and sense making muscles within the framework of an art practice. The environment and conversation is designed to balance the acquisition of studio and photography skills. My teaching does not relay sequential or delineated steps, nor provide an end product.  By working with photography, drawing and Cellulose Nanofiber pulp (CNF), I teach classes and workshops that support “process,” finding “self direction” and recognizing the thoughts that appear through the rumination of making.

Which means these WORKshops and classes are not for everyone. The workshop economy, as craft building, is essential for the artist community. It is my aim to create a learning environment that is designed to explore the abstract and intellectual carriage of art. Without a deeper understanding of the agency of the arts, the depth and reason is lost. What is offered is what I feel is missing from art curriculum, and what I longed for as an artist. My work, and academic pursuits have brought together the essential core of the workshop. Art making can be thinking. 

First, regardless of the medium, the lesson plan is laced with automatic writing. Note taking practices artistic research in real time while supporting deep dives, and the ability to return to prior questions without losing train of thought. Learner proposed questions are processed with play and patterns. At timed junctures, the group is encouraged to share observations. The learning and listening builds a free association network.

Second, beginning barriers are removed, while access, accountability, and small tricks are provided. Particularly in photography, aesthetic issues will be approached if they are creating an impediment. Due to the ubiquitous presence and use of photography, we will discuss what is and how things are being looked at. We will discuss making a photograph instead, ahem capturing one. Lesson plans will include, habits of reciprocity, sense making as dowsing, and the edit process with patterns.

Third, by using an andragogical framework, the goal is to support the learner's flow of internal and external information, establishing a horizontal leadership model.  The lessons are designed to be simple launch pads for a curious mind to move faster, and not to direct an artist towards an answer.  Everyone is a learner, and everyone can be a leader. Embolden self-awareness,  an openness to curiosity and agency to pivot alters how art is made, moving form a beauty model to a thought model with beauty as a byproduct. 

Fourth, this is a hands-on process as thinking. It is my proposition that the abstract and emblematic translation of sense making can be nurtured by working with a beginner's mind. If working with CNF, learners are provided with the rare meeting of an unknown material, the pulp is a bit unruly and requires being present with where and how it exists in the world. While the material masquerades as a paper pulp, assumptions are rarely applicable. Paying attention opens up capacity without histrionics. 

Fifth, as this is to support thinking as making we will communally discuss our insights into reciprocity, language's role in art making, and materials representation and ethical implications. We will share simple areas that self permission is employed. How art making can be an act of activism, and change - without making “activist” art.  What sense making is. What artistic research is. Collaboration methods will be communally sourced, discussed and practiced. How these previously listed practices affect our senses as artists. Lastly, we will discuss the taboo conversation of calling oneself an artist and what it takes. The answer may very well be surprising. 

These workshops can be applied to an established practice or a new one. They will deepen the skill set. The incorporation of photography or CNF into a human's practice is not a sign of a success, rather it is the ability to pivot, and jump across into whatever is unknown for them. Material does not define the artist.

As a listener, it is my practice to shape questions for each participant's shared work, and to encourage others to do the same. Watching what they bring forward, and help to connect what the work in the studio represents. By reestablishing the framework as sense making, and maintaining this, the viewer is also required to sense make. Research shows that work that requires sense making brings a deeper enjoyment.

Working with learners has given me hope, as the work has enacted activism and ability to think for themselves. Historically, I have worked in community long to enough to receive feedback from child’s perspective, by their adult selves. I have been told that I supported self permission, implementation of possibility, and to not seek perfection. If it is necessary to draw on the wall, that is the answer. I have worked with graduate students, receiving feedback about my ability to hold space and respectfully walk with their growth, connecting historically and thematically. In adult community work, I have heard that these lessons have altered art practices, to move beyond route paths. Teaching keeps me accountable to the social practice of facing intellectuality in abstractions, and artistic research that provides answers that are of value and yet different from my collaborators. In the practice of creating a different future, one that recognizes multi species, more than human and human rights, one must be able to meet and walk with what is. These skill are to establish connection without patriarchal colonial prerogatives. Sly, isn’t it?