Printmaking motivated me to make art. Printing inspired—but more importantly encouraged me to develop—my visual language. While working an etching plate, I had noticed a classmate subtracting ink from a clear plastic plate with a cotton swab. He would practice the same technique for the same image on more plates of different colors. On a single paper, he would register these several plates together. I just witnessed a monotype; this changed my art making.
Though making monotypes may seem a reverse step in the printing industry, drafting an image with painterly gestures in layers of colors provided more immediate and surprising results. To learn this printing process, I worked on a series of glassware still-lifes. Artists such as Alan MaGee, Charles Bragg and Egon Schiele inspired my visual storytelling and character rendering. Their exaggerated proportions and forms fit my idea of object making on a surface: Magee and Bragg's caricatures had a punk attitude with mournful expressions; Schiele's exaggerated body dimensions and proportions developed with bold line work created tense emotions through distortions. All of this helped my characters tell their stories within a monotype.
Read about my process in more detail as I work through a print.
Currently, I am working toward a New York State Teaching Certification in Visual Arts. While doing so, I work as a substitute teacher and an art instructor for afternoon art workshops.
There is more to me than just this bio, like these periodic statements: VIEW MY BLOG
My art teaching philosophy starts with...
As an artist, using an eraser is not removing a mistake, it is just another rendering tool.
Art is valuable. Art conveys meaning, emotion, wonder and thought when words do not work. Students as artists discover their environment and community by practicing critical observation thinking skills, evaluation and analysis. As an art teacher I will work with students to develop a visual vocabulary and practice where they can create and communicate successfully and artfully within a safe and explorative environment.
While having a New York State Teaching Certification in Visual Arts, I have the opportunity to practice my teaching skills and strategies: one as a substitute teacher by maintaining the educational expectations of each teacher within their classrooms; leading a school club for Theater Set Design; and, for a short period facilitating an art educational environment for young artists for a local art academy.