It is definitely easier to write about work when things are going well, but it is even more important to write about what happens when things get challenging. The act of writing about the challenging times can be challenging in itself but can also provide invaluable insights into the process of teaching: important for the writer and just as…

Like so many other doctors, the author loves the arts deeply. Playing a musical instrument and making photographs have been joyful pursuits throughout his schooling, training, and subsequent forty-five-year career as a medical school professor and practitioner of diagnostic radiology. Despite stretches when his healing art pushed aside his visual…

In this article, the author shares her experiences of the universality of art making and artistic experience of being a dancer and teaching artist. She describes her performance at Kohler, a worldwide leader in plumbing products in Spartanburg, South Carolina, where she had an epiphany dancing in a toilet factory--a sudden, intuitive moment of…

The author is naturally a kinesthetic learner. As a child she was steeped in the wilds of seashore, fields, and woods in which she was free to roam, explore, and imagine in a deeply sensual, movement-oriented world. Because of these first experiences of freedom of movement and spontaneity in the highly intense natural world, she found the…

There are many talented and creative dance professionals working in academia today, and it can be stifling to an artist to feel that one must give students traditional class assignments to evaluate their progress. Dance is a creative endeavor, and all aspects of the curricula, even non-movement-based classwork, can and should reflect this fact. In…

Schools that bring in teaching artists often look beyond their school walls--to other sources of funding and for collaborative partnerships--to work with teaching artists from the community. For the teaching artist with an expansive vision and a willingness to try new approaches, opportunities may be opening up beyond the typical…

For nearly 25 years, the author has driven the highways and back roads of Illinois, teaching dance to school children, leading family programs, performing lecture/demonstrations, and choreographing technically simple, conceptually complex pieces with and for young dancers. The author's home base is Champaign/Urbana (C/U), twin cities with a…

Support from school partners is absolutely necessary. Every teaching artist knows this, and every arts education organization strives to cultivate this support. In this article, the authors create some powerful strategies for achieving this support, such as agreeing at the outset about the focus of the residency. Lessons that develop meaningful…

In this article, the author shares how she created a mini international conference of like-minded peers. Many freelance Teaching Artists feel isolated from a lack of peer contact in their work. That feeling was relieved last spring when the author received two similar e-mails sent, respectively, from 3,000 miles away to the east and to the west.…

In 2003, the Arts Education Partnership's Second National Forum on Partnerships Improving Teaching in the Arts recommends that Teaching Artists be trained to be advocates and to speak publicly to education stakeholders about what they do. The author agrees. However, she believes that Teaching Artists must familiarize themselves with the available…

This article presents an interview with four seasoned Teaching Artists: Keith Terry, Kimberly de Caires, Ruth Bossieux, and Jeff Raz. The TAs reflect on the importance and complexity of intellectual property issues. They also shed new light on the views and experiences of TAs around this issue and encourages a broader dialog in the TA community.

The authors work in the most difficult conditions to create the most crucial art. In this article, the authors share their experience in teaching art at Devereux Deerhaven, a home for abused and neglected girls. They arrived at Devereux Deerhaven unprepared for the residents and the facility. Yet, they left educated about their students and the…