Art Education in the Community
The Department would like to congratulate Julianna Dimeola (’21) and Julia Pfaar (’22) for their exceptional work on MUSE this summer! Under the mentorship of Dr. Carolina Blatt and Professor Anita Allyn, Julia and Julianna ran a week-long photo workshop for local high school students who lost access to studio resources and instruction due to the pandemic. The resulting images are on display in the windows of the first and second floors of AIMM during fall semester 2021 and on temporary exhibition (September 8 – 27, 2021) in AIMM 119. Learn more about their work and the AMPLIFY project here.
Art education majors Erica Gavzy and Alanna Trainor co-presented with Dr. Carolina Blatt-Gross, assistant professor of art education, a paper titled “H2OMG! Channeling Environmental Themes into Issue-Based Art Instruction” at the 2019 Art Educators of New Jersey annual conference.
Art education majors Shayla Nolan and Estefany Rodriguez published an article with Dr. Carolina Blatt-Gross, assistant professor of art education, titled “Community-Based Art Education for Pre-Service Art Educators” in the fall 2019 issue of Art Beat, the professional publication of the Art Educators of New Jersey. The article summarizes the educational neuroscience that supports CBAE as a best practices as well as the personal experiences of pre-service art educators who engaged in CBAE through a TCNJ course on community engaged art.
Art Education in the Schools!
How can art teacher training programs provide art opportunities to New Jersey communities? This is a question that is of great importance to the art education program at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). Not only do we want to advocate for the arts in K-12 school art programs (through traditional field experiences such as student teaching), but we also want to provide meaningful artmaking opportunities to an underserved and diverse K-12 student population in innovative ways.
To support our efforts, Professor LaJevic was recently awarded a Special Events Grant through Art Educators of New Jersey (AENJ). The grant funded art materials for workshops that targeted underserved and diverse K-12 students. Recently, junior-level preservice art teachers organized and implemented five after-school and Saturday art workshops at Artworks, Trenton’s downtown visual arts center, and sophomore-level art education students taught four art workshops at a Burlington City primary school that recently dropped its art program
Each of the hands-on workshops was based on an important big idea (i.e., a broad topic or social issue) and explored contemporary artists. Supporting arts integration models, the workshops aimed to stimulate connections between art, everyday life, and academic subjects, thereby promoting student understandings of art, world, and self.
In one of the Artworks workshops, students made fantasy book sculptures as they repurposed used books and learned about the Pennsylvania-based artist Jodi Harvey-Brown.
Another workshop explored the art of tattoos (e.g., history of tattoos, tattoos in current culture, and tattoo artists) as students designed their own tattoos using Silhouette temporary tattoo paper.
All the AAE students did a great job teaching the workshops and bringing the art into the community! Keep up the great work!
