Defining social justice art education can help teacher candidates understand what it is and how to use related pedagogies to address issues of access, equity, and power in their future classrooms. In this article, we explore social justice art education with preservice teachers through a lesson based on the work of socially engaged artist Aram Han…

Knowing that vulnerability and risk-taking are both necessary to the educational experience (Willcox, 2017), the author became curious to know what role vulnerability plays in the self-expressive artmaking process, and what could be learned from the uncomfortable feelings that emerge when an artist feels vulnerable. The author also wondered what…

Shyama Golden is an exciting contemporary artist who combines her love for traditional and digital media to create highly stylized and symbolic images. Her work and the work of other female artists can be highlighted in K-12 classrooms as part of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive curriculum. Introducing a contemporary female artist like Shyama…

Contemporary art educators design artmaking experiences around questions, ideas, and themes to help engage students in personally relevant meaning-making (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Gude, 2004, 2013; Walker, 2001). Preservice art teachers are trained to plan lessons and curriculum to move beyond the so-called school art style (Efland, 1976;…

In this article, Sue Uhlig highlights the mixed-media artwork of vanessa german. german uses everyday objects like bottle caps, spoons, and coins assembled en masse to create different assemblages, including power figure sculptures. Through these re-collected objects of the past, german shapes new associations in the present and helps direct…

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…

This instructional resource presents contemporary works of art that illuminate and revel in the decadence, decay, and potential for regeneration imminent in organic matter decomposition. In so doing, these artists employ a range of strategies that might be drawn on in the art classroom: observing, illustrating, and reinterpreting decay;…

Encompassing complex scatter plots, visually friendly infographics, and surprising works of contemporary art, data visualizations are as diverse as the disciplines from which they emerge. Over the past few decades, a strand of data visualizations has emerged that engage with ecological and sustainability topics and issues, such as concerns for the…

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…

Art education has celebrated pluralism and cultural diversity to bring a more profound understanding between people from different backgrounds. However, since the spread of COVID-19, horrendous discriminatory crimes have increased, such as the 2021 Atlanta massacre, a shooting that targeted Asian American-owned massage parlors. These alarming…

An art curriculum is a composite of cultural expressions, the values and experiences that students and teachers bring with them into the classroom, and the social contexts of the learning environment (Kraehe, 2010). In developing art curricular materials, educators are encouraged to integrate a diversity of cultural perspectives. The contemporary…

In this article, the authors explore how a photographer and artist-in-residence, worked with students in a community college arts classes to tell the photographic story of their dreams. This Literacy Through Photography (LTP) program gives young people cameras to tell the stories of their lives through their own images. Artist-in-residence…

The emphasis on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM) disciplines in schools has caused advocates for art education to propose the addition of the arts to the study of STEM, transforming STEM into STEAM. One method of implementing STEAM is Design Thinking (Henriksen, 2017). STEAM education and Design Thinking are both models for…

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;…

The consideration of color/lighting in time-based media resurfaced for the author in the cinematic creation of "Moonlight" (Romanski & Jenkins, 2016), and subsequently in the creation of "If Beale Street Could Talk" (Barnard et al., 2018). She was moved by the thoughtful consideration of color/lighting/editing, which would…