The most valuable asset that I bring to teaching is that I have synthesized the skills I have developed over my career as a figurative painter, abstract painter, designer, printmaker, illustrator and textile artist.  What has emerged from my own development as an artist is a unique and authentic sense of process: I am cross-referential and multi-disciplinary, and I use a wide variety of tools, techniques and materials to explore and express my passions and doubts.  From this research and practice as an artist, I have developed a teaching methodology that is similarly multifaceted and eclectic, while at the same time built on my strong foundation as a figurative artist.  By modeling the trajectory of my own artistic practice for students, I provide a roadmap for them to inspire them to develop their own particular direction. 

Authentic process is critical for any artist.  I do this in my class through assignments that are designed to encourage a unique response. In fact, the first project I assign, a visual history book, requires the student to document their life as an introduction to classmates and as a repository of ideas that can be referenced throughout the semester.

I also use master history painter Theodore Gericault’s process in creating The Raft of the Medusa as a model for teaching students how to be self-reflective and to explore their motivations: we examine the events leading to the scene depicted in the painting and study Gericault’s impassioned response.  But this project also teaches students an extremely varied set techniques and processes in making narrative and figurative art by taking them through a series of rigorous steps: the building of three dimensional maquettes, the creation of line-drawings of their models, the experimentation with the illusion of light with ink studies and finally, a large charcoal drawing that emerges as a wholly original copy of the Raft of Medusa. 

Students then choose their own story, a “dramatic memory,” and re-work the process using a different set of self-reflective research: examining their own thoughts, feelings and associations.  I encourage students to review their own visual history book to focus their subject. This project moves students towards an authentic and organic use of materials, including the unique and personal sense of story, that will be critical in distinguishing themselves as artists and designers. 

A traditional approach to drawing often separates drawing from painting, encouraging students to master drawing and then use these techniques in works using different material and colors.  My approach both as an artist and in the classroom, is a fusion.  I believe that color in itself is a valuable tool in understanding and using the central concepts and skills of drawing, particularly shapes and planes and therefore, I integrate the use of color much earlier than most courses of artistic study.  Of course it is possible to teach drawing in a more traditional way, moving students from the mastery of tonal renderings of points to marks, lines, shapes, planes and mass.  However, I have discovered in my own work that integrating color into the drawing process earlier teaches students a more holistic skill-set and helps them understand more fully complex spatial relationships. This approach has proven more effective in teaching students early on how to integrate “negative” shapes to create the illusion of three dimensional space, leading to drawings that are not only more technically advanced, but also more authentic. This approach can also be more efficient: students can more quickly and more efficiently learn to render form by integrating color.  In the classroom, this means that students can see the results of their drawings more quickly and opens up space and time to address other more complex issues.