My work ethos
I believe our most authentic selves take shape as we move between our inner lives and the outer world. We rarely stay in one state for long. We shift between order and chaos, and between conformity and freedom, sometimes willingly and sometimes with resistance. That movement can fuel our creativity, or it can be used to control us, and over time it becomes hard to tell which of our choices are truly our own.
My purpose is to help artists, educators, and creative workers notice these points of tension and work through them, using processes of thinking and making that help them find their voice. As an artist, teacher, and researcher, I know how powerful and how vulnerable our many roles can make us. This shapes my approach of looking at problems from different angles and treating active citizenship as a way of learning and living more inclusively.
How can we fully devote ourselves to a cause without losing our own identity and vision?
Aesthetics & Cultural Inquiry
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I provide consultations and workshops on art and culture policy, curriculum development, inclusive leadership and team culture management, program reviews, and mentorship programming.
Request a booking to:
Design /deliver art and visual culture curriculum
Develop cultural policy statements and maps
Develop community engagement strategies and assessment design
Train educators in creative leadership
Develop arts-based research design
Offer arts-engaged career advising
Art portfolio preparation for college applications
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Request a booking if you are interested in inviting me as a keynote or guest speaker/panel member/discussant at an event/podcast that calls for my areas of expertise
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I provide workshops for groups, as well as individualized mentorship in mindful engagement with art and visual culture. Examples of work I have done:
For schools and teachers:
Professional Development workshops for teachers (Art and Art Integration)
High School/ IB Art: Support for students undertaking IB visual art program, emphasizing personal expression and visual literacy
For K-12 students:
1:1Portfolio Preparation for art college applications
High School/ IB Art: 1:1 Coaching for students undertaking IB visual art program, emphasizing personal expression and visual literacy
For Lifelong learners:
Storytelling with art: Creative writing and artmaking for personal expression (workshop)
Exploring values through mythology: Explore how symbolism in art from various cultures builds family and community values (workshop)
My digital life: An arts-based examination of your digital immersion and the impact it has on your everyday life (workshop)
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Coming soon…
Lesson plans, reference sheets, worksheets, handouts, and ebooks…I have ideas up my sleeve but if you’re looking for something specific that I can make for you, just drop me a line via the contact form!
My work ethos
Here’s what I know about our creative lives and how to nurture them:
Our most authentic self is shaped by the journey of going from our inner self to the outer world, and vice versa. Our strengths and weaknesses depend on how we perceive this journey.
We humans don’t naturally stay in one physical, mental, intellectual, and emotional state permanently; we constantly move between these states, sometimes willingly, and sometimes with resistance. This movement involves following and breaking normative rules.
This push and resistance, the need to oscillate between order and chaos, conformity and freedom, familiarity and difference, can either enhance our creativity or be used to control us. Over time, it becomes difficult to determine how our own actions give meaning to our lives and where we are being influenced by external forces.
My life purpose to help you identify and move towards resolving these points of conflict, using processes of thinking and making that enable artists and creative workers to seek and find their voice.
How can we can fully devote ourselves to a cause without losing our own identity and vision when there are too many variables to sort through?
I find that one can navigate the complexities of feeling like an outsider to our lives within the multiple aspects of our own priorities and responsibilities, when we identify what makes us feel most ‘at home’.
I help you identify these points of strangeness and move towards becoming a meeting point for conflicts, where the act of representation itself becomes an essential part of problem solving.
As an artist, teacher, and researcher, I'm aware of how powerful and vulnerable the multiplicity of our life roles can be and how they can suppress creativity and open-mindedness. This leads to my approach of visualizing problems from different angles, thinking about leadership in ambivalent situations, and seeing active citizenship as a way to generate learning and living in inclusive and equitable ways.
I also believe in sharing knowledge without excluding nor uncritically appropriating from other cultures.
