Dear Art Teacher

This is a sub-project of my Metaphor/ms work. I’ve been interested in the ways in which art teachers add value.

There is plenty of research and advocacy for creative subjects within the curriculum, but the people who teach these subjects are very often glossed over, as if the curriculum content is more important. I know this is not so. There are art teachers out there who are striving to offer the best art opportunities to children and young people, in a very difficult educational climate for the arts. They are often unsung. There are also art teachers out there who are stifling creativity, closing the door to children’s creative futures. So what does this look like, and how can we turn that tide?

This project is about finding out and acknowledging the things that good art teachers bring to educational settings, that are valuable and unique, that should be cherished, because they are needed by our children and young people. What are the positive pedagogies that art teachers embody? Why are they important? And what happens when the impact is less positive? What can we learn from this?

Pat Thompson and Christine Hall, in their 1999 article, put forward arguments for ‘What's different about arts teachers (and why it matters) … and this body of work aims to explore that further.

Memories (my own and of others around me) and an autoethnographic approach feature heavily as a source of inspiration, and viewers will bring their own memories to the table when engaging with the works.