Back to School

For three summers, Winnipeg art teacher Stacey Abramson has spent a week in New York City as part of the Art21 Educators program. The experience is transforming her teaching.

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I often wonder how much thought people, both inside the art world and outside it, give to art education. The reality is that art education today, so often under threat when budgets are tight, shapes the citizens – and the artists – of tomorrow. What students are exposed to in classrooms, and the methods and processes they explore, fuels creativity and, ultimately, changes how the world experiences art.

However, today’s art classrooms are often rooted in product-driven work, where students are expected to create something envisioned by an adult rather than engage in open-ended exploration. And, all too commonly, students see only the art of dead artists, usually white, male and European. While the art world has shifted dramatically – and remains in constant flux – art education is still fixated on elements, principles and ideas from the past.

If it’s not already clear, I’m a total nerd about art education. My non-teaching friends and, if I’m being honest, my teaching friends, know not to draw me into conversation about my favourite classroom topics. I became a teacher in 2009 after finishing art school and working for a few years in the Winnipeg art community. I soon began to think critically about how to make art education more relevant for the students I teach at Maples Collegiate, a public high school in Winnipeg.

When I heard about Art21 Educators, I knew I had to apply. I couldn’t believe there was a program that brought teachers together to talk about the potential, wonder and future of art education. With a hope and a wish – and a ton of worrying over my application – I filled out the forms. In 2016, I became one of 12 educators (and the only Canadian) to join the program, then in its sixth year. I had the pleasure of going back in 2017, and again this summer, as an active alumna happily continuing my connection to the Art21 community.

Art21 is best known for its award-winning biennial film series, Art in the Twenty-First Century, which started airing on PBS in 2001, when I was still in art school. As students, we were excited to watch the artists we loved create their work, while discovering other artists we didn’t know. The series, now broadcast around the world, has featured a wide range of artists from Richard Serra and Louise Bourgeois to Kara Walker and Yinka Shonibare. Montreal artist David Altmejd was featured in 2012, and in 2016, four Vancouver artists were included: Stan Douglas, Brian Jungen, Liz Magor and Jeff Wall.  

Most participants in Art21 Educators teach art from kindergarten to Grade 12, but those specializing in other subjects are sometimes accepted. Over the course of a year, groups of teachers work with mentors to extend their learning, explore new possibilities and push their understanding of contemporary art education. To date, more than 100 educators have participated in the program. Without question, it has brought my teaching to a level I didn’t think was possible.

The summer institute that launches the program each year is the icing on an already sweet cake. We spend a week in New York City exploring and learning about contemporary art by visiting galleries and studios, taking workshops and listening to guest speakers. We also work with artists, curators and others to develop and engage with new ideas and pedagogy related to the contemporary art classroom. We ask big questions, look deeply at art and develop a camaraderie that fuels us throughout the school year. Once home, we keep in touch through monthly webinars and social networks. We have assignments to complete and we also document our teaching on video so others can share feedback on the new approaches we are trying.

This summer, we were welcomed into the expansive collection of the New York Public Library and focused on the artist as researcher. We developed themes to explore in our classrooms – mimicking the process artists go through when creating a work – and dove into our research with the help of the library, as well as Art21 artists and other experts. Our topics included everything from radical cartography in school communities to developing compassion through art. The scope of ideas and classroom applications was wide and inspiring.

I was interested in how Canadian artists are represented in the United States – both in textbooks and gallery collections. The Canadian angle is one I hold close, both inside and outside the classroom. Contemporary Canadian art is exciting. Today’s artists are pushing boundaries and opening paths for a broad range of voices, which is why works by Kent Monkman, Geoffrey Farmer, Ruth Cuthand, Shawna Dempsey and Lorri Millan are part of my classroom canon.

Although Art21 is an American non-profit organization, the scope of educators is continental. Don Ball, a recently retired art teacher from Cawthra Park Secondary School in Mississauga, Ont., was one of the first Canadians to join the program.

“I learn a lot about the world through the eyes of contemporary artists and through contemporary art I care about,” says Ball, who received a Prime Minister’s Award for Teaching Excellence in 2017.

“When I think of missing and murdered Indigenous women in Canada, my first exposure and contact comes through Rebecca Belmore. Her piece Vigil, with her standing on a street corner in East Vancouver nailing her red dress to a telephone pole, led me to want to understand more about the specifics behind her understandable outrage and concern … Years later, the video installation of the piece, The Named and the Unnamed, was in the Global Feminisms exhibition at the Brooklyn Museum.”

Like me, Ball is interested in how Canadian artists are seen in the United States.

“I am always looking for ways I can relate to what I see,” he says. “At any museum, I am thrilled to see work by someone from Canada, of course, and also to see how other works involve me – intellectually and spiritually – with something I might not otherwise have access to, something I might want to know more about.”

The people I have the honour of working with through the Art21 Educators program form a community like no other. They feel like family.  As I start a new school year, I am bringing the power of new ideas and the creative energy of a growing community of inspiring educators to my classroom. ■