ABOUT ME

My family says that I was born under a wandering star.  When my young friends were wistfully imagining their dream houses, I was busy devouring the pages of travel magazines.  I am not sure if a roaming celestial body had anything to do with my intense curiosity about the world, but a deep love of learning, art, and travel has certainly taken me a long way from the wild isolation of my rural hometown and defined my journey as a teacher.

This curiosity has led me to some fascinating places, including teaching overseas for 6 years in South Korea and China. Working with students from around the globe has given me a deep appreciation for the unique language, culture and abilities each of us brings to the classroom. Ensuring that my teaching methods are inclusive and celebrate what each of my students know and can do is a cornerstone of my pedagogy and I strive to honor the diverse talents and cultures we bring together in our learning space. Teaching visual arts has been a powerful vehicle for this, with so many opportunities for inquiry based learning that truly express each student’s unique perceptions and interests.

My favourite things are messy: muddy trails, big simmering pots of aromatic food, my studio floor strewn with paint and paper. I think making things asks us to attend to the sights, sounds and textures of the present moment and by being attentive to the sensory qualities of the world we are better able to connect with it.  As philosopher David Abrams puts it, "only in regular contact with the tangible ground and sky can we learn how to orient and navigate in the multiple dimensions that now claim us.”  I feel honored to be able to help people find their messy thing and hope it always brings them ground and sky.