Teachers as Artists: Examine, Emerge, Enlighten
Maryhill Museum of Art, working in partnership with the Washington Art Education Association and the Oregon Art Education Association, showcases teacher talent by inviting educators to participate in Teachers as Artists, an annual juried exhibition in the museum’s MJ Murdock Charitable Trust Education Center.
As art educators create new ways to deliver arts education, both students and educators alike have been inspired to re-examine methods of engagement. This year Teachers as Artists celebrates the talent of art educators from both Washington and Oregon who have persevered and, yes, even flourished during the pandemic.
Our juror is artist Christopher W. Pothier. A graduate of the University of Massachusetts in Amherst, Pothier uses his art to make commentary about society, human behavior and emotion.
See Teachers As Artists: Examine, Emerge, Enlighten at Maryhill Museum of Art from March 15 – April 24, 2022.
AWARDS:
Best in Show: James Andrews The Fighter
First Place: Marie Pierson Self-Portrait
Second Place: Katie Jahner Making Sticks of it All
Third Place: Laurie Fanger Reed Circus Bubbles
Honorable Mention: Michelle Fortier My Evening View
Honorable Mention: Sunyoung Kwon Sensibility
Curator of Education Choice: Michael Dodson Contour Screen with Mask #3
Curator of Education Choice: Desiree Greystone Tell Everyone on this Train I Love Them
Ruth Appleby
James Andrews - Best in Show
BEST IN SHOW
James Andrews
The Fighter
Oil on linen
16” x 20”
Kingston High School, WA
Principal: Jack Simonson
Artist Statement:
This piece is of a long-time friend who is now a fellow teacher, back home in New York City. She is continuing her years long fight against breast cancer. She was in remission and had a recurrence during this pandemic. As someone who is struggling with recurrent cancer, myself, this piece is extremely personal. The subject, Marissa, captures all the fight and all the fear and uncertainty of dealing with this disease…and the added worries which come with dealing with it during this pandemic. Her unwavering strength lends itself to me every time I look at her image.
James Andrews
James Andrews
Droplets
Oil on canvas
24” x 30”
Kingston High School, WA
Principal: Jack Simonson
Artist Statement
This piece captures the uncertainty we have all felt about what will come next, throughout this pandemic. It has been an even more fragile time for our teens, who are already unsure of everything at this point in their lives. Teaching high school, I have seen so many kids feel so unsure about everything …including how to express their concerns. Everything in their lives is seems to live in an uncertain mist around the next bend. Helping my students and my own children navigate each new challenge has been eye-opening, exhausting, and very rewarding.
Heather Anderson
Manifest
Heather Anderson
Encaustic, oil stick, on wood
24” x 20”
Baker Prairie Middle School
Principal: Jennifer Turner
Artist Statement
Manifest belongs to a series of encaustic paintings that examine the contrast of wild natural spaces and the static, tight views of urban and suburban living. This specific work sets to capture the wild chaos of the natural world which simultaneously can provide healing and calm when one enters the space intentionally. Using oils sticks within the layers of wax builds the uncultivated landscape indicating a depth beyond what one initially sees. A beckoning call to be answered.
Christine Bertucchi
Christine Bertucchi
Memorized
Glass on Glass Mosaic
18” x 30”
Charles Wright Academy, WA
Principal: Susan Rice
Artist Statement:
We get lost looking out our windows, thinking of the outside world. This panel is a tribute to the adventure that is always on the horizon. The light changes this piece depending on the time of day. Adventures can seem hopeful and bright in the strong light and dim and distant in the darkness.
Michael Dodson - Curator of Education Choice
CURATOR OF EDUCATION CHOICE
Michael Dodson
Contour Screen with Mask #3
Latex/Acrylic/Spray paint, canvas
36” x 36”
French Prairie Middle School, OR
Principal: Yolanda Lopez
Artist Statement
As an educator, one of my primary goals is to guide my students through the creative process. I believe that students build confidence as artists when they engage in the challenges of creative problem solving. One of the ways I encourage and guide my students through this experience is to provide opportunities for them to experiment, explore and develop ideas from among a limited selection of media. Through the process of experimenting with different techniques using various media, students make critical choices concerning what ideas produce desirable visual results. Over time, they expand both their knowledge of media and the techniques that align most effectively. “Contour screen with mask #3” is an example of my own work in this process. By limiting my choices, I’m encouraged to consider how each media interacts with another as well as the overall composition that is produced. In this way there is a physicality to the creative process. Both content and composition are informed by the limitations or freedoms discovered in each media application.
Hanne Duncan
Hanne Duncan
Texture Map #1
Mixed Media
10”round
Chief Joseph Elementary School, OR
Principal: Amber Gerber
Artist Statement
Shift and forge. Revisit and create. These are actions thrust upon me due to the global pandemic. While persevering as an educator, I also became an artist in residence…in my own home. The inability to take physical journeys during the pandemic enabled me to bring to light the creative journeys I had long to take. I’ve always buried my head in maps, as if they were really good books that I couldn’t put down. The diverse lines detail roads and rivers, mountains and prairies, and are full of stories to be told. The layers of information provide hours of exploration. Maps connect far more than points A to B, or start and end points. They are blueprints of connections that intertwine the unique journeys we are all living, including the places we’ve been and the places we have yet to explore. Maps reflect our unique individualities flowing together to create connections upon this earth, and no matter which path you take, there will be beauty along the way. In the classroom, I encourage students to visual their past and future journeys. To consider what has been created for them, what they have blazed for others, and which path they hope to create for their future. In my work, I explore the idea of mapmaking through textiles and found objects. My maps explode with vibrant color and texture and complement the natural environment as I see it.
Hanne Duncan
Hanne Duncan
Texture Map #2
Mixed media
11.5” round
Chief Joseph Elementary School, OR
Principal: Amber Gerber
Artist Statement
Shift and forge. Revisit and create. These are actions thrust upon me due to the global pandemic. While persevering as an educator, I also became an artist in residence…in my own home. The inability to take physical journeys during the pandemic enabled me to bring to light the creative journeys I had long to take. I’ve always buried my head in maps, as if they were really good books that I couldn’t put down. The diverse lines detail roads and rivers, mountains and prairies, and are full of stories to be told. The layers of information provide hours of exploration. Maps connect far more than points A to B, or start and end points. They are blueprints of connections that intertwine the unique journeys we are all living, including the places we’ve been and the places we have yet to explore. Maps reflect our unique individualities flowing together to create connections upon this earth, and no matter which path you take, there will be beauty along the way. In the classroom, I encourage students to visual their past and future journeys. To consider what has been created for them, what they have blazed for others, and which path they hope to create for their future. In my work, I explore the idea of mapmaking through textiles and found objects. My maps explode with vibrant color and texture and complement the natural environment as I see it.
Joshua Everson
Michelle Fortier - Honorable Mention
HONORABLE MENTION
Michelle Fortier
My Evening View
Acrylic on Canvas
3’ x 5’
Washington Middle School, WA
Principal: William Hilton
ARTIST STATEMENT
My work represents community, our current delicate ecosystem and how the two intertwine. I painted this for our middle school commons where I teach art in honor of the abundant agricultural region in which we live here in Yakima WA. I enjoy depicting folk-like imagery that touches on family, heritage, and my love of nature. This is what Yakima means to me: richness in diversity, devotion to progress of our city, and hope and belief for our children’s futures.
Jessica Chickadel Garrick
Jessica Chickadel Garrick
Red Vase
Monotype
14” x 18”
University Child Development School, WA
Principal: Paula Smith
Artist Statement
I am a collector of the scattered, natural artifacts. In the Red Vase print I used a series of cut paper stencils that represented my love of natural forms and objects I have collected over the years. I fit these natural shapes together in different ways to develop the imagery that emerges during my artistic process. Working through the monotype printing process I use inks, tools, and almost anything that will make marks, watching as an image emerges. This process is a way for me to develop new techniques and make discoveries as I work.
Desiree Greystone - Curator of Education Choice
CURATOR OF EDUCATION CHOICE
Desiree Greystone
Tell Everyone on this Train I Love Them
Acrylic on Paper
7.5” x 10”
Franklin Elementary School, WA
Principal: Stephanie Bray
Artist Statement
This is inspired by the May 26,2017 incident on the Portland MAX when a white supremacist started threatening two teenage girls, one black and one in a hijab. Three me stood up to the man, resulting in two of them being killed and one being injured. As Taliesin Myrddn Namkai-Meche lay dying, he said, “Tell every
one on this train I love them.”
Kristen Hendricks
Kristen Hendricks
Night Vision
Encaustic, mixed media
11” x 10.5”
Washington
Artist Statement
“Night Vision” is an ode to the ferocious fragility of nature. The ghostly linocut print at the heart of this work is inspired by the image of a resident barred owl captured by an infrared camera posted on my wooded acreage in the foothills of the North Cascades, a formerly rural area now being clear-cut, developed, and overpopulated. While images of deer, coyotes, and raccoons are common, I have in the past year been surprised by midnight snapshots of a bobcat, a bear, and a cougar, without a doubt driven from their homes by the ceaseless destruction of their natural habitat. The owl sees all in the dark and bears witness to the legacy of human development.
Kristen Hendricks
Nicho for 545 Lost Children
12” x 11”
Encaustic, mixed media
Artist Statement
“Nicho for 545 Lost Children” is an indictment of the Trump administration immigration policy that allowed thousands of children who traveled with their families from Central America and across Mexico to seek asylum at the southern American border to be taken forcibly from their parents and imprisoned in for-profit detention facilities. Citizens around the world pressured the United States government to reunite the families, but officials were unable to locate any relatives for at least 545 children. A nicho is a form of Latin American folk art, often used in a devotional way to honor a religious figure or other significant people by including their images, personal items, or tokens of affection. The central image of my nicho is two children, holding hands and running, cut from a Mylar blanket, which is all those thousands of captured children were given to sleep with on the concrete floor of their cages. I constructed my nicho as a protest against the inhumane treatment of these children and their families, and as a demand that, in its first act of national contrition, the new incoming American presidential administration leave no stone unturned in the search for their families.
Katie Jahner - Second Place
Katie Jahner
Making Sticks of it All
Stick, yarn, roving, mixed media
60” x 30”
Olympia High School, WA
Principal: Matt Grant
Artist Statement
A friend posted on social media at the start of the pandemic about the severe cognitive dissonance we were all experiencing. She asked people to post a sentence with this format: “Something awful about 2020 is happening, but I still need to _______ (something very mundane or banal)”. This post resonated with me as I grappled with the fact the thousands of people were dying of COVID 19, but I still needed to trim my fingernails. I had students admitted to mental health facilities for suicide attempts, but I still needed to plan an ice breaker for tomorrow’s lesson. Our world is being destroyed by climate change, but I still needed to make lunch. Everything feels so odd, and disconnected, and full of mental conflict. It’s difficult to sift through the experiences around me and discern which ones will be lasting, and which are ephemeral and temporary. This idea of not knowing what would be permanent lead me to create with natural materials that could decompose over time. I wanted to engage with a material that could capture the precarious nature of our current climate and also embrace this moment of not knowing–not knowing how our lives will change, not knowing how (or if) education will change, and not knowing much about what I’m making or what its purpose is. Using branches from my backyard and fibers from a local yarn shop also led me to ponder the cyclical nature of life and the beauty of knowing that regardless of our current issues, the seasons will continue.
Sunyoung Kwon - Honorable Mention
HONORABLE MENTION
Sunyoung Kwon
Sensibility
Charcoal pencil/charcoal sticks on paper
12” x 18”
Studio S Fine Arts, WA
Artist Statement
My philosophy of creating is a sophisticated sensitivity into two- and three-dimensional materials in which I try to give an explanation about the multiple sensory experiences of an instant. The simultaneous experiencing of sensation between substantial and an insubstantial situation has inspired me, and the unusual conjunction of circumstances has given me an affection for a spiritual nature. What fascinates me about spirituality is the image of a situation. The middle of the night is quiet, silent, subdued undisturbed, and motionless; only a fine branch of a tree is swaying in the wind, or a candle is flickering in the breeze. The assumption that this is really a silent and a dark night and the phenomenon is the movement of the objects. The motions of the swaying branch and the flickering candle break the silence of the night, and they are visible objects shaken by an invisible force like wind. This situation is an image that I delineated. I presented the quiet and silent night to set off the movement of a branch and flickering candle. These images have inspired me and have given me an appreciation for an agitation within calm. I have investigated the phenomenon of invisible force impacting imaginary and have experimented with multiples and transparent images to explore chaos within calm. These conflicting phenomena have always coexisted, but we easily realize only one side from the visible image. I try to express the dualism of the phenomenon between a spatial and periodical feeling.
Laura King
Poppy Wishes #2
Graphite on paper
42” x 72”
Shorecrest High School, WA
Principal: Lisa Gonzalez
Artist Statement
Connections: I made Poppy Wishes #2 during the pandemic. The surface of the paper is made up of layers and layers of heavy, frustrated, marks and messages. The layers have been drawn, erased, redrawn and erased several times. The poppies still grow and bloom. Things are tough but there is beauty in life. The process of making this piece has helped me stay anchored as an individual and an artist, while giving me an avenue to trade my frustrations for hope.
Carrie Mass, Jolanda Frischknecht, Amanda Leonard, Meta Bruner, and James Knight
Carrie Mass, Jolanda Frischknecht, Amanda Leonard, Meta Bruner, and James Knight
Strange Concoction
Video
Speaker: Daniel Stokes
Videographer: Sumi Wu
Portland Waldorf School, OR
Principal: Jamie Lloyd
Artist Statement
The art of eurythmy is inspired by the sounds of speech, and musical intervals. In schools, it supports an endless list of skills–phonemic awareness, spatial awareness, non-verbal expression, and group dynamics. It serves both as assessment and therapy for challenges of the body and the soul. In movement, we are connected through our awareness of each other, and the spaces between us. We are buoyed by the gestures around us, and the interplay of our roles. Eurythmy requires actual proximity, and its survival through these unprecedented times is testament to our commitment to this art.
Cyndi Noyd
Cyndi Noyd
Moving into the Light
Graphite on paper
9” x 12”
Washington
Principal: Eric DeVries
Artist Statement
One more step, unwind your arms & look forward. Rejoice! This work is a part of a series looking to capture the isolation experienced through this pandemic. Especially for our young people whose ideas for the future were shattered. Though simple images I am trying to address the loneliness but show how quickly one can move forward into a positive space.
Jill Nettles
Sea, Swallow Me
Wool needle felting
11.5” x 12.5”
North Star Elementary, WA
Principal: Stephen Rushing
Artist Statement
This self-portrait and seascape emerged from processing pain from being abandoned by my mother when I was 13 years old. I’ve only begun to address the grief, sadness, and agony from that time in my life. Since I’ve become a mother myself those traumas have resurfaced. Being a working mother of 2 young children, during a global pandemic, processing personal trauma, is crushing at times. This work is an expression of both my love and respect for the sea as well as the desire to just swim out to its depths and simply sink. Part of my healing journey is swimming in the cold waters of Puget Sound, where I imagine the young girl, I was wishing I were Ariel from “The Little Mermaid”: Innocent, free, and full of hope.
Nate Orton
Nate Orton
Shortcut Behind the Dollar Tree
Casein and soot on board with frame
16″ x 12″
Riverdale High School, OR
Principal: Kerri Smith
Artist Statement
Life has slowed down for me since Covid. After my home art studio was converted to a full-time online classroom, I found myself anxious to create my personal artwork outside. This led me to primarily create paintings in newly vacant parking lots around the suburbs of Oak Grove, Oregon. This time and space helped me reflect on my neighbors and their daily routines during “the long year.”
Nate Orton
Nate Orton
Sun Reflection
Casein and soot on board with frame
16″ x 12”
Artist Statement
Life has slowed down for me since Covid. After my home art studio was converted to a full-time online classroom, I found myself anxious to create my personal artwork outside. This led me to primarily create paintings in newly vacant parking lots around the suburbs of Oak Grove, Oregon. This time and space helped me reflect on my neighbors and their daily routines during “the long year.”
Marie Pearson - First Place
FIRST PLACE
Marie Pearson
Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School
Self-Portrait
Walnut Ink
8.5” x 11”
Principal: Filip Hristic
Artist Statement
Prior to the pandemic, I interacted with many people daily. I am an art teacher at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School in Portland, and when school buildings closed, my life changed dramatically. My 11-year relationship ended, I moved twice, and I spent hours alone. My only interactions were through a computer screen or a phone call. I went for walks to recenter myself and take breaks from teaching online. The hiking trails in and around Portland are my evening sanctuary, and I love to get out of the city on days when I am not teaching. Spending so much time alone influenced the direction of my artwork. I started practicing self-portraits. The various trees I encounter on my hikes inspire me, and I incorporate them into my paintings. The more time I spend in nature, the more content I feel with myself, and during this time of solitude I think about my goals and who I want to become. For me, this pandemic illuminated what really matters.
Marie Pearson
Marie Pearson
Self-Portrait
Watercolor
8.5” x 11”
Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School
Principal: Filip Hristic
Artist Statement
Prior to the pandemic, I interacted with many people daily. I am an art teacher at Ida B. Wells-Barnett High School in Portland, and when school buildings closed, my life changed dramatically. My 11-year relationship ended, I moved twice, and I spent hours alone. My only interactions were through a computer screen or a phone call. I went for walks to recenter myself and take breaks from teaching online. The hiking trails in and around Portland are my evening sanctuary, and I love to get out of the city on days when I am not teaching. Spending so much time alone influenced the direction of my artwork. I started practicing self-portraits. The various trees I encounter on my hikes inspire me, and I incorporate them into my paintings. The more time I spend in nature, the more content I feel with myself, and during this time of solitude I think about my goals and who I want to become. For me, this pandemic illuminated what really matters.
Laurie Fanger Reed - Third Place
THIRD PLACE
Laurie Fanger Reed
Circus Bubbles
Bubble Ink on Book Pages
7” x 36”
The Cascade Parent Partnership Program, WA
Principal: Owen I. Gonder
Artist Statement
These ink prints are the result of an experiment gone wrong. I was testing bubble ink recipes for an elementary school lesson. This particular bubble ink mix was a total failure from a bubble perspective, but I liked the results of the pours. Put together the prints seemed to create a story, so I collected them into an accordion book.
Mary Rowland
Mary Rowland
Examine
Acrylic paint, oil pastel on roofing felt paper
24”x36”
Bainbridge High School, WA
Principal: Kristina Rodgers
Artist Statement
Teaching High School Art classes during the past two years of the pandemic has caused me to examine every aspect of my teaching practice. From how I instruct students through zoom to how we use found materials for creating art. I have enjoyed the creative challenge and continue to repurpose common items in the creative process.
Mary Rowland
Mary Rowland
Uncertain Present
Photo transfer, typewritten words, paint and china marker, collage sewn on raw canvas
18”x18”
Bainbridge High School, WA
Principal: Kristina Rodgers
Artist Statement
“Many persons live in a constant state of noise, with their unresolved past and the uncertain present breaking in on them…” a quote by Urban Holmes III. Living through this pandemic, as a working public school art teacher I was inspired by this quote. I challenged myself to create with small vintage photos take in Norway. Reproducing the images multiple times in various pieces through photo transfer onto raw canvas I strived to represent the past. Adding stitching, drawn circles and dark values was to bring the images into the present. The type written words are collaged in the piece as a constant reminder.
Michele Soderstrom
Michele Soderstrom
Snowy Field
Watercolor
10″ x 7″
Port Townsend High School, WA
Principal: Carrie Ehrhardt
Artist Statement
Watercolor and pastel are my mediums of choice because of their versatility and intensity. Each and every time I paint, I am thankful for my gifts and for what becomes reality on the paper as a result of my efforts and belief in my skills. Empowering others with skill is why I teach. Challenges on many levels, since we closed school in March of 2020 have led to many discoveries about myself and about my students. Finding the happy through my art lights my way into leadership for my students. This year my teaching focus is on empowering students to find a ‘happy’ through artmaking and the joy of sinking into a non-verbal world of creating. Being an art teacher helps me to breathe and my students unknowingly carry me through each day that we are in class together.
Michael Standley
Michael Standley
Michael Standley
Diving Bell
Clay
16” x 12”
Oregon Episcopal School, OR
Principal: Sarah Grenert-Funk
Artist Statement
Work completed during covid lockdown. Exploring large coil forms during that period. Piece addresses the notion of being trapped/isolated in a foreign environment that still has many features of life to enjoy.
Megan Tribble
Megan Tribble
Pacific Northwest Heron
Acrylic on Canvas
12″x12″
Evergreen Elementary, WA
Principal: Amber Targus
Artist Statement
Throughout the last two years, I find myself seeking to capture the quiet moments of the outdoors on my canvas. I paint my quiet observations of wildlife, insects, and plants. Things that often go unnoticed. I must choose to intentionally slow down and take time to observe these fleeting things: a bumblebee, legs thick with pollen falling from a flower, a hummingbird resting on a high tree branch, the heron emerging from the reeds. As I emerge from the life in pandemic, I choose to take with me this lesson of intentionally slowing down to examine the little things in life. I allow this lesson to enlighten my life as I move forward, not only for my art but in life. What might I notice when I slow to watch the sky, or take an extra minute for a student, or when spending a quiet moment with family that can further inform my art, my teaching practice, my life?
Alissa Tran - Honorable Mention
HONORABLE MENTION
Alissa Tran
Silvanus
Ceramic sculpture
Approximately 10″ ×13″x 6″
Molalla High School, OR
Principal: Bradley Berzinski
Artist Statement
Students in my advanced ceramics class must select a theme to explore throughout the trimester. They must research, design, and then pitch their concepts to me. One required project is a sculptural bust. I typically create one myself as a demonstration. In a year where the Molalla community is still recovering from fires and ice storms and a global pandemic, I draw hope from the regrowth that surrounds the city. The cycle of decay and regeneration is depicted in Silvanus, a Roman deity that protects the woods and wild.