Motivated by the discussion of modern and contemporary art in Dr. Seuss's (2019) "Horse Museum," the authors sought to determine if children's picture books about visiting the art museum include contemporary art. Moreover, if so, what messages about contemporary art are sent by these books? How can teachers who rely on picture books as…

As a visual artist, the author has developed particular responses to the materials that surround her in her studio. In this article, the author considers and reflects on the relationship between objects, the artistic process, and learning within the context of ecological themes. She launches the discussion by considering how objects are…

In this article, the author shares research into five images by artists whose work responded to and helped shape the Black Power movement: Emory Douglas's "Don't Support the Greedy," Betye Saar's "The Liberation of Aunt Jemima," Barbara Jones-Hogu's "Relate to Your Heritage," Elizabeth Catlett's "Malcolm X Speaks…

I am regularly asked, "What does this have to do with art education?" or "How is this art?" For instance, I like to do a project using the ongoing exhibition, do it, which is a curatorial project that started in 1993. At that time, Hans Ulrich Obrist invited 12 artists to submit a score, or set of instructions, that would then…

How might both beginning art teachers and those who prepare them become attuned to covert aspects of teaching art in schools that often go unnoticed, but that nonetheless impact both teachers and students and have significant implications for creating more just ways of being in schools and life? And how might arts-based approaches to attunement…

"I don't see color; I only see children" is a statement I often hear when discussing antiracist teaching. This common statement identifies a teacher as colorblind and reflects their color-blind perspective: an assumption that race is not a factor in the classroom. With such a perspective, color-blind teachers imply that they are not…

Activism and art have been intertwined for many years. For instance, songs including "A Change is Gonna Come" (Cooke, 1964), "We Shall Overcome" (Tindley, 1900), and "Freedom Highway" (The Staples Singers, 1965) were an important part of the Civil Rights movement. Further, protest imagery, usually in the form of…

In this article, a teacher-curator pedagogy is taken to mean an assumption of the role of both educators and curators in the planning, creation, and implementation of teaching units and lesson activities within the context of an online exhibition. For their part, students are engaged in developing the exhibitions and self-directed learning…

In the United States, Christianity is the religion of the majority, about 70% of people. Almost 23% are unaffiliated, and slightly less than 7% practice other religions (Sandstrom, 2016). While 7% may not sound like a lot, it means that a growing number of Americans have neighbors, schoolmates, and colleagues who practice diverse, often…

Despite the massive advances in artificial intelligence (AI) alongside the saturation of digital technologies in society, the domain of art education has experienced little change to account for the fact that humans are not the only content creators. Recent movements in art education--including but not limited to visual culture, choice-based art,…

One afternoon during the early days of the COVID-19 lockdown, as I was retooling my in-person courses for online instruction, I took a break to see how the educators and artists I follow on Instagram were faring. As I scrolled through a variety of posts, I happened upon an image showing a page torn from the 1940 children's book "Lentil"…

African American artists have participated in every major art style and movement since before the founding of this nation. However, until recent decades, this "grand epic" had been marginalized within the traditional survey canon of American art. Art historians have undertaken considerable scholarship (Bearden & Henderson, 1993;…

Freedom for most of the 4 million enslaved Black Americans in the United States was not granted when Abraham Lincoln issued the Emancipation Proclamation on January 1, 1863. Freedom came about in numerous ways and at different times. The status of Maryland's enslaved population was not decided until October 1864, when a statewide referendum on a…

Many scholars and educators are moving toward an anti-oppressive paradigm in art education, transitioning away from imposing norms in an effort to think more creatively about teaching practices and classroom culture (Kraehe, 2019). Reflecting deeper on her position as a White, middle-class, female teacher who taught in an underserved community,…

Although attempts are currently being made to understand the connections and differences between art and design education (Zwirn & Zande, 2015), there is little reflection on a key problematic that binds them together: the relationship between form and function. In this article, authors Tyson Lewis and James Thurman briefly share a three-part…