ALT/space

Artistic Director of Shearwater Productions, Holly Adams is a long time mask maker, stage combat choreographer, and performer with a focus on physical theatre styles. Holly also loves being a teaching artist! Whether she is giving a master class in NYC or at a college, or creating arts-a-the-core inquiry based curricula for elementary and high schools, she is loving every minute of it. She is the recipient of ATA’s Teaching Artist Service to the Field award for 2009-2010,a member of APA, Ed Bloggers, and a board member for NYSTEA. An interview with Holly is here.

Jay Albert is a musician and educator. His professional vision is to share music and help people achieve more of a connection to it, whether helping students learn to play or “teaching” an audience by means of a performance. He founded his company Songdog Music to further that vision. Jay holds degrees in guitar, music theory and composition from Baldwin Wallace Conservatory of Music and Kent State University. He has taught at both of his alma maters and elsewhere, from PreK to graduate level, and has presented at and supervised arts education departments for several organizations. Contact Jay  www.songdogmusic.com

After completing graduation in sculpture from Sir.J.J.School of Art, Mumbai (India), Anagha Bhat did masters in Ancient Indian History, Culture and Archaeology and now is perusing her doctoral research at the Department of Archaeology, Deccan College PGRI, Pune (India). Through her research, she is trying to combine art and archaeology together for teaching students about cultural processes. She believes this will lead to formation of a bond between the students and their environment and further to the sustainable preservation of heritage. She has been awarded ‘Jawaharlal Nehru Scholarship’ for the same. She works as a freelance educator, conducts various lectures and workshops at schools and art colleges. Contact Anagha at anagha.bh@gmail.com or visit www.anagha2102.blogspot.in

Emma Bolden’s chapbooks include How to Recognize a Lady (part of Edge by Edge, Toadlily Press), The Mariner’s Wife (Finishing Line Press), and The Sad Epistles (Dancing Girl Press).  She was a finalist for the Cleveland State University Poetry Center’s First Book Prize and for a Ruth Lily Fellowship.  She is an assistant professor of Creative Writing at Georgia Southern University.  Contact Emma  www.emmabolden.com  www.theyawp.com

Linda Bruning is a theater, teaching artist based in Minneapolis, Minnesota with 20 plus years in the field. She has a “freshly minted” Masters in Education with an emphasis in Arts in Education and Online Learning.   Linda is also a theater director, an actor and writes children’s theater scripts.  Her passion is helping disadvantaged young people find their voice through theater.  In her spare time, you will also find her gardening, backpacking, hiking, camping and reading.  Her newest best friends are the Earthway high wheel cultivator and her Kindle.  She is a true geek so, of course, she loves spending time on the computer creating new online learning programs to incorporate technology and residency work.  Contact Linda www.theheroproject.pbsworks.com

Ryan Conarro is an actor and director living in Juneau, Alaska. He works regularly with Juneau’s Perseverance Theatre, and he’s performed with Juneau’s Generator Theater, New York’s Theater Mitu, and Aquila Theater Company (national tour and Off-Broadway). As a teaching artist, Ryan works with the Alaska State Council on the Arts and the Alaska Department of Education, collaborating with teachers and students to support arts-based education practices. Between school days and rehearsals, Ryan enjoys hiking, kayaking, and skiing. He earned a BFA at NYU’s Tisch School of the Arts. Contact Ryan   

Mark Dzula and Ardina Greco are teachers, artists, and scholars. They also are married to each other, which allows them to spend lots and lots of time together. Whether working for the Museum of Modern Art, the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, the San Diego Museum of Art, or even Teachers College at Columbia University, Mark and Ardina continually find ways to challenge and inspire each other in theory and in practice. Mark’s research is focused on Aesthetics, Media, and Equity and Ardina focuses on the interactions of Artists, Curators, Educators, and Young Audiences in museum programs. They also co-direct a performance group called Jukebox Radio together. Here, they use shadow puppets, projections, and music in collaboration with museums and cultural institutions to develop Family Day shows and programming to highlight and engage visitors with work on view. Here is a link to Jukebox Radio on Facebook.

Kali Ferguson is a storyteller, teaching artist, cultural educator, and fledgling writer in her hometown of Charlotte, NC. However, she considers herself a child of the world. Her passion is to help every-day people appreciate their creative selves by engaging with stories, poetry, song, and dance. She began performing at four years old, and wrote her first poem around age ten. She is a dance and library lover who knows literacy and the arts are essential to a well-lived life. She started teaching at the age of sixteen, taught high school Spanish in her twenties, and has been a teaching artist with local and national organizations since 2004. Listen to her work at www.kaliferguson.com.

Chio Flores is a Peruvian visual artist and teaching artist who recently moved from New York to Lima, Perú.. She received a B.A. in Fine Arts from the Pontificia Universidad Catolica del Perú with a major in printmaking. As an accomplished visual artist, she has exhibited her mixed media work and installations in different countries such as the US, Canada, Finland, Puerto Rico and Perú. Chio is currently working on her seventh solo exhibition God Only Knows to open in April 2012 in Lima and compiling material for a book about her practice as a teaching artist. You can see her art work and process in http://chioflores.com and http://chio.posterous.com/ and read about her teaching artist work in http://studio409.posterous.com/

Amelia Hutchison is a native of Victoria, British Columbia and is currently a Freshman at the Maryland Institute College of Art. Presently pursuing an integrated double major in Humanistic Studies and General Fine Arts, Amelia hopes to earn her masters in Community Arts. A personal interest in the transformational power of art to heal, restore and rebuild, especially in the areas of crime and trauma, has lead her to take an internship at the Baltimore City Detention Center. Amelia works with mentally ill inmates in the pretrial section of the down town prison. Her own personal artistic practice revolves around themes of forgiveness, excess and recollection.  Amelia uses painting, interactive performance/installation art and slam poetry to explore these themes. More of her work can be seen at www.artbehindbars.tumblr.com  Contact Amelia  

Spoon Jackson has been in the art world and in prison for over twenty years.  He is an internationally known poet, writer, actor and native flute player.  His poems are collected in Longer Ago and have been featured in films, plays, articles, books and music suites.  He has won four PEN awards.  He is featured in two films by Michael Wenzer, At Night I Fly and Three Poems by Spoon Jackson, which won awards in five countries.  Spoon does not have any fancy degrees, and mentors youth and young at heart from life experiences and realness.  His newest book By Heart, was co-authored with Judith Tannenbaum and published in 2010.  He knows that inspiration is organic.  Contact Spoon at www.realnessnetwork.blogspot.com or www.spoonjackson.com

Nick Jaffe is a musician, recording engineer and teaching artist based in Chicago.  His TA work has centered on unconventional music pedagogy and student-run recording studios in schools.  As a guitarist Nick has performed with a wide variety of artists across many genres including Common, Dwele, and Estelle. Nick performs regularly with a number of different bands in Chicago.  His most recent solo album is a musical chronicle of the history of the Sputnik 1 satellite.  Prior to becoming a teaching artist Nick worked for 10 years as an aircraft mechanic.  As Editor of TAJ Nick hopes you will make the journal yours by reading it, responding to it, using it and writing for it.

Richard Jenkins is a published cartoonist, illustrator, and author currently living in Oklahoma. Since 1997, he has worked prolifically as a teaching artist, engaging students in story and image making though cartooning. Richard is also an arts & education consultant, training educators across the country in Arts Integration and in using Arts & UDL to engage learners of all abilities and styles. He is a Teaching Artist Fellow for VSA. And, Richard is the co-author of “Comics in your Curriculum,” an arts integration manual for elementary educators.  Currently, Richard is hard at work on two books. His latest graphic novel, a horror story entitled “Toil.” And a second as yet untitled teacher’s curriculum book, focused on engaging ELL and disabled students.  Blog: www.studiohijinx.blog.com  Website: ww.studiohijinx.com

Meg Robson Mahoney works as a dance specialist in Seattle School District.  Previous work incarnations include movement educator in private studios, English teacher in Japan, and classroom teacher. She was awarded a KCTS Golden Apple Award in 2006 and has served as president of the Dance Educators Association of Washington.  Degrees include a MIT from Seattle University and a Certificate of Movement Analysis from Laban/Bartenieff Institute of Movement Studies NYC. The mother of two grown-up children, now’s a time to read again — and travel!  http://dancepulse.org 

Suzanne Makol is a teaching artist at Marwen. She is also an editor at Composite Arts Magazine, which is available as a free download at www.compositearts.com. She received her bachelor of fine arts in photography at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2011. Suzanne enjoys photographing small treasures that may go unnoticed.

Maya Marshall is a Chicago-based poet transplanted from Houston, Texas. She has been published in various publications including Poetic Hustles in the Era of Hope and Change and Sonic Eclectic Magazine.  She’s a teaching poet committed to improving literacy in populations from 8 to 80.  Maya has conducted workshops in the Midwest, Southwest and South America.  By day she is a tattooed-90s-style-ornery coffee slinger.  By night, she is a tattooed poet whose work revolves around sexual politics, family, race and the body. You can find her here: http://quartorlifecrisis.blogspot.com.  

For over two decades, Billy Miller makes media — writing for magazines such as Esquire, advertising for the likes of Levi’s and Nike, and writing/producing television for the major networks and feature films. To him, there is nothing more rewarding than mentoring and making movies with young people through Oregon schools and the non-profit Caldera.  Contact Billy

Carol Ng-He was born and raised in Hong Kong. Graduated from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago with MA in Art Education, she is a Chicago-based interdisciplinary artist and art educator. Carol has worked at Silk Road Theatre Project, Chicago Teen Museum, and Housing Opportunities For Women. Currently, she serves as Education Director at Intuit: The Center for Intuitive & Outsider Art, and is an adjunct faculty member at Columbia College Chicago.  Contact Carol  www.carolnghe.com 

Anna Plemons is a guest teaching artist at California State Prison-Sacramento, where she works with groups of writers under the bureaucratic umbrellas of mental health services, inmate self-help programs, and protective custody.  She is also a PhD candidate in Rhetoric and Composition at Washington State University where her primary research interests revolve around teaching and writing in prison, and the complications and implications of such work.  Contact Anna 

Kate Plows teaches ceramics and graphic design at the high school level in suburban Philadelphia.  During summers, she is Assistant Director of the Blue Ridge Summer Institute for Young Artists (BLUR) in Virginia.  Kate holds a Bachelor in Fine Arts in Drawing from St. Vincent College, and a Masters in Art Education from The University of the Arts.  She is interested in the intersection of craft and technology, and exploring social justice through projects linked to the arts curriculum.  Kate makes and occasionally exhibits functional pots.  www.teachingcraft.wordpress.com 

Jeff Redman is the middle school drama teacher at American International School Dhaka, Bangladesh. He founded the Ivey Award winning Workhouse Theatre Company in Minneapolis where he served as Artistic Director for six years. Jeff leads workshops for educators and was invited to present his workshop, Injecting Drama! at the NESA conference in Athens, Greece. He holds a B.S in Theater and M.A. in teaching.  Jeff is currently working on connecting ex-pat students to local Bangladeshi artists.

Laura Reeder is a multi-media teaching artist and national advocate for artists who teach in all settings. She is currently at Syracuse University researching the social issues and qualities that define artist-learner-teacher work. Laura has been a national advocate for the arts and creative learning in her work as Executive Director of Partners for Arts Education, Education Council Member with Americans for the Arts, and Associate Editor of the ALT/space (formerly Newsbreak) section of Teaching Artist Journal. She is a consultant to many arts, educational, and social organizations in the United States.

Malke Rosenfeld is a percussive dancer and teaching artist who has performed and taught across the U.S., Canada and the United Kingdom.  An expert in Cape Breton step dance and American old-time clogging, she is the founding member of the Celtic music group Cucanandy and spent two years touring internationally with Footworks Percussive Dance Ensemble, which included the London run of Riverdance.  Malke has worked in educational settings since 1997.  A creative, playful teacher, she specializes in math/dance integration with a focus on creative problem solving, increased rhythmic competence, and the satisfaction of self-expression.  She developed her current program, Math in Your Feet, in 2004 with math specialist and classroom teacher Jane Cooney.  Contact Malke  

Victoria Row-Traster, Teaching Artist, Royal National Theatre, London, is part of the Primary and Early Years Program developing and delivering arts curriculum that aims to introduce students to theatre through top-quality productions. Prior to this, Victoria worked for five seasons at The New Victory Theater, New York, as Curriculum and Publications Manager, leading the development and creation of the New Vic School Tool™ resource guides. Her teaching experience ranges from early years through to university level, and her focus as a teaching artist is mainly on assisting schools and teachers to bridge the gap between the academic aspects of a piece of theatre and art form it is exploring. Victoria received a Master’s Degree in Educational Theatre from New York University and a Post Graduate Certification in Education, Drama and English from the Central School of Speech and Drama in London, England.  

David Rufo is an artist/teacher/researcher working on his PhD at Syracuse University in Art Education. With seventeen years experience as a general classroom fourth grade teacher, David’s current research interest is the self-initiated creativity of children in a child-centered environment. In addition to being a full-time teacher, David is also an adjunct instructor at Syracuse University where he has created and taught a course titled, Art Educators as Contemporary Artists. His most recent article titled, “Building Forts and Drawing on Walls: Fostering Student Initiated Creativity Inside and Outside the Elementary Classroom,” was published in the May 2012 issue of the peer-reviewed journal, Art Education. His current paintings incorporate watercolor, ink, and antique letterpress to examine children’s literature.Contact David

Gigi Schroeder-Yu began her career in education as an art and drama teacher in elementary classrooms in Arizona, Wisconsin, and Chicago. She completed her masters degree from the University of Arizona and is currently pursing her doctorate degree in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Illinois at Champaign Urbana.  For she several years has assisted with the implementation of the Reggio Emilia Approach while working for inner city programs in Chicago, central Illinois, and Albuquerque, New Mexico. Currently, she is a professional development provider for Christina Kent Early Childcare Center in Albuquerque, New Mexico.  They are implementing collaborative professional development through the study of children’s interests and the use of documentation protocol.  Contact Gigi

Androneth Anu Sieunarine grew up in Trinidad and was educated under the British system of education. She migrated to the United States in the late 1980s after teaching in Trinidad for five years. She attended Brooklyn College where she graduated with a Bachelor and Masters degrees in Studio Art /Art History and Art Education. She attended Columbia University where she graduated with a Doctorate in Art Education in 2008. She is the curator and arts coordinator of New York City Art Teachers Association, a delegate of New York State Art Teachers Association, a painter and a cultural researcher. Androneth currently teachers Visual Arts at The High School of Fashion Industries in New York City.

Michael B Schwartz creates and nationally exhibits large-scale paintings, drawings and murals and has been a teaching artist since the early 80’s.  A graduate of the Tyler School of Art with a masters from the UA School of Art, he describes his collaborative art and teaching as Popular Education in the Arts.  Michael is the Executive Director of Tucson Arts Brigade and a Lead Artist / Teaching Artist with the Tucson Mural Arts Program. Current projects include the “Barrio Centro History Mural” and the “Inside the Overpass” project at 29th and Columbus, these intergenerational stewardship projects seek to redirect graffiti artists creativity towards advancing their knowledge of materials, tools, techniques, art history, public art and murals and partaking in anti-bully and financial literacy curriculum while building self-confidence.  Contact Michael  Michael’s Website  Community Arts and Murals Blog

Allison Upshaw is also known as “MzOpera”, and for the last 13 years she’s worked as a Performing Arts Integration Consultant/ Teaching Artist in AL, AR, GA, TN and SC. Her background includes two degrees in Voice Performance from Oberlin Conservatory and Louisiana State University, a union card from the Actor’s Equity Association, years of studying African influenced dance, and a stint as a college instructor of voice and acting. Allison provides residencies, workshops and professional development in arts integration. In 2012, she had the privilege of being selected to present at the 1st International Teaching Artist Conference in Oslo, Norway.

Joan Weber is the Director of the Education division for Creativity & Associates, a program provider in arts education and corporate consulting that uses the skills of theater to enhance creativity and critical thinking. She is an adjunct faculty member at Towson University’s Arts Integration Institute and in the undergraduate Towson Theatre Outreach Program. Prior to this, Joan was the first Executive Director of Arts Every Day, a member of the Ford Foundation’s Arts Education and School Reform Initiative. She was also Education Director of Baltimore Shakespeare Festival, where she developed her interest in arts integration. As a theater artist, she has appeared in many of Baltimore’s theaters over the past 15 years.  Contact Joan  

Steve Willis is an Associate Professor of Art Education at Missouri State University in Springfield. He taught art in public schools for 23 years prior to coming to Missouri State. Steve’s interests included issues of equity, Native American practices, arts assessment, service learning and community engagement, and spirituality in art. As a contemporary artist, he creates images concerning spirituality. Steve is an enrolled member of the Western Cherokee Nation. Contact Steve