Sandie Butler slathers glue onto cerulean bamboo paper, a remnant from another art teacher’s project, and forms it into a cone that will be attached to a sculpture she is building.
This is the sixth time in eight years that Butler has spent a week at Moore’s Teachers Summer Institute, designed for high school art teachers to enhance the culture of teaching and empower learning in visual art. She retired this year from Community High School in Teaneck, N.J., after 23 years of teaching art to students with learning disabilities.
“I looked into another workshop to go to, and I always come back to this one,” she said, her blue eyes smiling through her red, white and blue rhinestone-studded glasses. Butler is one of 30 teachers participating in this year’s program, which runs June 24 – 30.
A WEEK FOR THEMSELVES
Butler echoed the thoughts of many of the participants, who said they enjoy having a week to focus on their own art.
“A lot of people are surprised at how disconnected we become and how refreshing it is to return to our art,” said Banks Clark, a film and photography teacher at Trinity School of Durham and Chapel Hill in Durham, N.C. Clark was painting portraits of people he had photographed. A two-time participant, he said he found TSI after searching for a program like it.
“I think TSI puts together two really important pieces,” Clark said. “The first is that to teach visual art without having a healthy personal practice risks losing the soul of the teaching of the art. The second is that through the hustle and bustle of teaching, the very first thing that gets lost is that personal practice.”
REFLECTION
Teachers are given studio space to make art and learn new skills and techniques. They can network with colleagues and earn professional continuing education hours. The program also includes workshops, lunchtime lectures and evening discussions.
“I see it as a retreat,” said Carmela La Gamba Bode, who traveled from Lindenhurt High School in New York for her fourth TSI. “It’s my one week of the year to focus on my painting. At home, I have demands. Here, I do not.”
"I came to focus on my art, but I find I can also see what everyone else is doing and apply it to my class," said Sarah Ritchie, a first time TSI participant from the Bellmore-Merrick Central High School District in Bellmore, N.Y.
Louis Mazza, who teaches photography at the Arts Academy at Benjamin Rush in Philadelphia, was studying a collage he made from photographs he had taken.
“When you start teaching art, you never get to make it,” he said. “Being in this environment is like being a student. It helps you reflect not only on your own work, but it lets you reflect on how your students feel.”
“It’s interesting to put myself in a vulnerable situation, like I do with my students,” said Jen Herrmann, an art teacher from Ridley High School who was at TSI for the first time. She worked on collages and digital illustration during the week. “It’s refreshing to feel that way again."
GIVING BACK
Participating high school art teachers receive a $5,000 Educators Scholarship for Excellence in the Arts, to award a graduating senior toward attending Moore’s BFA Program in fall 2018. Butler gave a previous scholarship to a former student of hers, Janaina De Sousa '19, a Photography & Digital Arts major.
“She is opening many doors for me that I never pushed myself to go through,” De Sousa said. De Sousa will be interning with Butler this summer, including a week in July when they travel to Costa Rica to teach papermaking and book-making to students in schools, libraries and senior homes.
