I have always been interested in my community, whether that be through my artwork or actively volunteering. I have hosted and taught classes within my community since I graduated from college. I always felt like there was a place for our community to connect within the classroom, and that the classroom itself was a community. Where I currently teach I have such a diversity of students and the school itself is very large (about 600 per graduating class). About 60 percent of my students are below the poverty level also. My own home county (Sullivan) also has a very low income rate and is rated one of the lowest income counties in N.Y. I have always taught students with special needs, and lower income situations and this is where I fell in love with the idea of meaning making, community based art education that encapsulates everything around us, i.e visual culture.

Visual Culture is something that I learned during my undergraduate studies at the College of Saint Rose, and I was immediately hooked. Although I love museums, and feel as though they benefit and aid art education, most of my students will never step foot inside of one. They will not visit galleries in Chelsea or anywhere else for that matter. Most of the artwork that they will see are on their walks home or on their T.V’s or iphone.

Meaning making has been my top priority this year, and my students have been getting really engaged in the curriculum that my colleagues and I have been doing. Collectively we have moved away from the standard design components and moved more into what,and how we can accomplish making students see, and create self identified, meaningful art for themselves. We are teaching them to think like artists. Artist’s who take their own experiences, i.e their community, and their personal lives and create work that they are proud of, work that is reflective of who they are as people.