Art Education Research Profile
About My Professional
Research Interests:
R. Silverman, L: Multiplicity 2007 R: Burning and Looting, 2015
Throughout my life, art and education have been inextricably linked interests. As a young adult I very naturally entered the field of art education, where my philosophical, professional and creative endeavors merged. Since 2009, I've taught K-12 grade art, currently at Mohawk Trail Regional Middle and High School in Shelburne Falls, Massachusetts. For many summers I have been involved with local projects as a designer, director, artist and educator. I have been fortunate to collaborate with the Hilltown Youth Summer Theatre Workshop and with Double Edge Theatre as a painter, immersed in outdoor theatre, youth education, and research-based collaborative set design. Individually, I have worked in various media, most recently in watercolor, video, and digital imaging.
Through my scholarly, professional, and artistic work I explore themes such as art of place and time, collaborative and interdisciplinary art-making, and social justice. As an educator, I am essentially concerned with how to create and implement an art program that responds to local and global issues and interrogates individual and social responsibility as a critical practice. To this end, I pose these 3 primary questions:
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What practices best harness the joyful, cathartic, transformative power of creativity while fostering critical engagement?
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What methods result in the most meaningful, relevant, and innovative student work?
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What institutional changes are necessary or possible in order to restructure art education to fulfill this potential?