Journey Map

To illustrate my journey to art education, I chose to build this set of ceramic nesting dolls using the coil pot building technique and acrylic paint.  Each of these figures represents a different period in my life and the personal development that pervaded that particular time.  I chose to embody these dolls in an egg-like form in order to represent gestation, rebirth, and development and to reinforce the idea that I am still developing as an artist, a teacher, and a person.

The first figure represents me as a school aged child.  The figure looks forlornly down at empty hands.  Sadly, my childhood experiences with art (in school at least) were very poor.  My art teacher throughout all of grade school, a very strange woman indeed, used to force us, even as 1st graders, to render as realistically as possible with oil crayons.  Then she would ask us to come up to her desk one at a time and she would "correct" our work by coloring all over it.  Art was arduous. I never felt ownership of a piece and I always felt very inadequate about it as though I'd never be very good at it or be able to get it right.  Sad as this tale may be, these negative experiences motivate me all the 
more to give children the enchanting and empowering experience with art that I now know is possible.

The second figure represents me as a teenager, the time in my life when I learned the power of my own voice and my own ideas.  Speaking and writing were an important form of expression for me in this stage.

The third figure is me in my early twenties.  This is when I really learned how to listen.  I learned the importance of noticing and understanding and began to realize the value of sometimes not speaking.

The next figure symbolizes me in my mid-twenties.  This was a time of searching for my heart and my passion.  The figure looks upward as if to suggest seeking a higher calling or greater meaning in life.  She holds up a flame which represents all that is true, genuine, and valuable that I have to offer.  It was at this time that I realized, undeniably, what I had known to be true all along...that I had to teach.  And teaching art...teaching artfully...resonated with all that I believe about what education needs...what humans need...to build a better future.

The last figure, the smallest one, gazes straight ahead, a shovel in hand, ready to work, symbolizing that once you know what you need to do and you see your path ahead of you, the challenge is cultivation.  More than ever in my life I am realizing that Rome wasn't built in a day.  Work worth doing takes time, patience, and care.  We cultivate our world and our lives through diligent work which is never really done.  This is why there is nothing inside the last doll but space...room for more layers...for whatever else I become along the way.

Each of these figures fits snugly inside the one before, collapsing into a unified whole.  All of these elements are part of me all at once and even the smallest and the wisest has been there all along.  Life peels away the layers as we go along, revealing new parts of ourselves, new strengths and weaknesses, and calling deeds and ideas out of us we never knew were there.  This is my journey.  I look forward to traveling with all of you for a little while.