As an art instructor, I prioritize fostering lifelong relationships with art, making, and material. My teaching centers on instilling confidence in both ideas and process: helping students think through their hands, develop ownership of their aesthetic approaches, and value themselves throughout their creative journeys. As a queer trans educator, I place diversity, equity, and inclusion at the forefront of my syllabus and within the social environment of the classroom.
In beginning courses, I design assignments that encourage material exploration and curiosity, self-investigation, and technical practice. My goal is to equip students with foundational skills that support the development and realization of ideas in material form.
In advanced courses, I emphasize rigor and the evolution of individual practices. I work closely with each student to draw connections between projects and research, helping them articulate both their work and their identities as artists. I want students to recognize themselves as artists in all aspects of their lives, beyond institutional or market-driven validation. I foster communal discourse, believing that the relationships formed within the classroom can lead to meaningful collaborations beyond the university.
A brief body movement exercise has become a routine beginning to every class. Drawing on my studies in massage and movement, we practice Qigong, self-massage, and stretching to ground the mind and body. These exercises cultivate awareness of healthy body mechanics during making and reinforce the integration of physical well-being with creative practice.
Emphasizing the full use of studio resources, encourages students to take advantage of the facilities and materials available to them during their time at the university. I view the classroom as a space where mistakes are not only accepted but valued as essential to the learning process. When students feel comfortable and have confident access to resources, they are more open and engaged in their creative and educational development.
Before critiques, we collaboratively create a Community Agreement outlining expectations for discussion and feedback. Although I provide a basic structure, students are empowered to establish shared norms for group engagement. I also prompt them to bring in work from other classes, enriching critique through cross-disciplinary connections. Critiques begin with a “popcorn” of words so that every voice is heard. I record these initial impressions on the board, creating a collective reference point we can revisit to deepen or reactivate the discussion as it evolves. As an exercise in active listening, students pair up to take notes or create drawings during each other’s crits.
In beginning ceramics courses, students explore their ancestry in relation to ceramics, researching cultural techniques and traditions and replicating them through form or surface. This connects them to the material’s historical lineage. For those whose ancestral connections have been disrupted through colonization, genocide, or the Atlantic slave trade, I invite interpretations through myth, memory, and imagination. This assignment also provides space to apply a critical lens to the concept of ancestry itself. Other projects focus on material transformation—such as
creating accumulative installations or reimagining familiar objects, like a ceramic pillow, to shift meaning through material contradiction.
In advanced ceramics, each student presents their work to the class to foster visibility, dialogue, and community. These presentations guide my individual meetings with students, where we build on emerging ideas. Assignments serve as flexible frameworks for exploration, inviting diverse outcomes across sculpture, performance, and installation. Weekly readings ground our discussions in theory and contemporary practice, deepening critical engagement with shared themes.
Ultimately, my goal is to equip students with material fluency, confidence in their ideas, and a lifelong relationship with art-making that nurtures continual personal and communal growth. Together, we build an inclusive and diverse learning environment where connection, empathy, and collaboration are as essential to artistic success as technique and concept.