Bio

Kate Jellinghaus

I’m a teaching artist interested in exploring how collaborative art practice can be used to create meaningful experiences for youth and to affect social change.

About my background: I received my BFA and MFA in painting at the National Academy of Art in 2004 from Sofia, Bulgaria, under Painting Professor Andrei Daniel.  I learned to speak Bulgarian and had many interesting experiences there, including receiving a CEC Visual and Media ArtsLink Award to help young people living in state-run orphanages create social documentaries through photography.  My education also includes majoring in History and Italian Studies at Stanford University (1994), and studying Art Education at Massachusetts College of Art and Design (2010).

From 2006-2010, I worked as Boston Director of Artistic Noise, an arts and entrepreneurship program that exists to bring the freedom and power of artistic practice to young people who are incarcerated, on probation, or otherwise involved in the justice system. I currently serve as board president of this organization. Previously, I taught studio art and art history as an adjunct professor at Montserrat College of Art and Northeastern University’s Foundation Year Program.

I currently teach ceramics and sculpture at Westwood High School and serve as advisor to the WHS Social Justice Club and as a member of the Steering Committee for WHS’s Courageous Conversations program.