This show is a celebration of artists who teach grades K-12. We often spend so much time and energy motivating and helping our students create, that we risk neglecting our own craft. Our jobs require us to assume various roles–nurturer, parent, and coach–and achieve a myriad of goals–to inspire, teach technique and regulate students of varying emotional, social, and developmental levels. We do all of this because it is important work, but in our field, teaching others often overshadows our own artistic development. This show is a reminder to ourselves and to others that the reason we teach is because we value the creative process. In order to support our students we must devote time to our own artistic practice. Our teaching feeds our art making and our art making feeds our teaching. This symbiotic relationship allows us to lead by example and helps us seek the difficult balance between giving to others through teaching and giving to our own work as artists.
