Educators practice the arts they teach
The Regional Arts Center hosts an opening reception tonight for a new art exhibit that showcases those teachers who practice what they preach—in a classroom, that is. They’re teachers who walk the artistic walk, so to speak, and make art while serving as K-12 public school art instructors in the area. “Area Art Educators” is up through Oct. 28 and showcases the talents of a dozen artists.
Tonight’s reception runs from 6:30 p.m. to 8 p.m. and offers a chance to meet these artists.
Artists included are Amber Fenix and Taylor Livingston from Arkansas High School, Christina Frost from Trice Elementary School, Kimberly McVay from North Heights Junior High School, Shannon Puckett from Genoa Central High School, Kira Suttee from Fouke High School—all on the Arkansas side.
Then, on the Texas side, other exhibit artists include Shea Phillips from Texas High School, Nicole Brisco and Melissa Manning from Pleasant Grove High School, Christina Cook from Pleasant Grove Intermediate School,
Catherine Singleton from Liberty-Eylau High School and Chelsie Morgan from Hooks Junior High School and Hooks High School.
Amy Donohoe, director of visual arts and community programs at the Texarkana Regional Arts and Humanities Council, says the idea for this exhibit was kicked around for a couple years with a few local teachers suggesting it.
“I thought this would be a really good opportunity to highlight the talent that area school systems have,” Donohoe said. The requirement was that all the teachers must be currently working in a local public school system. That narrowed it down.
In the future, TRAHC hopes to hosts similar exhibits, such as one for retired teachers. Seven districts are represented in the exhibit, and teachers are nearly equally distributed—by accident—across both sides of the state line.
“We have a whole range. We have sculpture, assemblage, photography, mixed media, drawing, painting. We have a little bit of everything. We even have some fiber art,” Donohoe said.
“I thought it would be a cool opportunity to show basically some history behind some of the teachers in our districts, as well as their statements about their own artwork and their teaching philosophy about teaching art to children,” she said, noting she saw some themes running through the works.
She asked teachers to submit more than four works so she could curate the ones that would best fit for an exhibit. She noticed some themes that were similar to ones found in the annual student show.
“Either the students are influencing the
teacher or vice-versa, or they’re both influencing each other,” Donohoe said. “So I thought that was really interesting.” That means there were mixed media— and skulls, she noted. The variety includes realistic works and more illustrative, abstract work.
“A lot of portraits, a lot of still lifes, and we have some functional pottery, as well,” Donohoe said.
Then there’s photography, such as the Amber Fenix macro photos with water and objects in them. “She always works with her students working on splash photography,” said Donohoe.
Some of the teachers expressed their philosophies succinctly, while others had much to say, she said. They expressed their passion about teaching art.
“One of the benefits of this kind of exhibit is that students get to see that their teachers basically practice what they preach,” Donohoe said.
Art students also get to see their teachers practice what students are asked to do in class. They show that such concepts as a clean presentation can be practiced. “They’re showing that in their own work,” she said.
For teachers, it can be difficult to devote time to their own work after a long day working with students, but it can be done.
And for artists with skills, if you don’t use it, you lose it, Donohoe said. These teachers are using it, whether they’re young teachers just starting out or older ones who’ve taught for years and years.
(Admission is free. The RAC is open at 321 W. 4th Street in Texarkana, Texas, from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., Tuesday through Saturday. More info: TRAHC.org or 903-7928681.)