Dialoguing with Contemporary Art and Culture: Recent Works by the Youth Artists of ARTISTIC NOISE

This blog gives visual examples of various ways contemporary art and culture can be used to foster critical thinking / creative problem-solving and create opportunities for young artists to address current social and political issues in personal, meaningful ways. This photo essay shares 20+ recent works created by artists who are incarcerated, on probation or otherwise involved in the juvenile justice system, in New York and Massachusetts.

Tackling Current Issues in the High School Ceramics / Sculpture Studio

This blog outlines several ways to use collaborative art practice to engage high school art students in current social, political or environmental issues that are important and meaningful to them, as a way to expand their idea of the possible in art as well as to engender greater social connectivity in the classroom and beyond.  

Thinking Thematically in the Ceramics Studio

This blog highlights a thematic approach to art education in ceramics, which developed out of an AP Art History curriculum. I hope to demonstrate how larger themes (The Natural World, The Human Body, Knowledge and Belief and Individual and Society) can empower students to make meaningful connections between historical and contemporary works of art and expand a sense of the possible in the clay studio.

“Safe, Big and Connected” and Not Shying Away from Change

This blog describes the process of implementing a collaborative social justice art curriculum, with a focus on the issue of gun violence, at Boston's B-SAFE program. The various stages of the collaborative project, from ideation to final product, are documented here.