Who Am I?

I am Curious...   I Connect…  I am a Teacher… A Collaborator...  An Artist…  A Volunteer…  Open Minded…  Creative…  I seek to Inspire…  I am a Risk Taker… I Challenge others…   I Share My Own Growth… I am Compassionate and look for opportunities to volunteer and help others in the local community… I seek to Celebrate the work of my students…  I Embrace Diversity and Multiculturalism… I am a Life Long Learner…

I make deep connections with people. It is who I am. I am a curious individual who loves finding out what makes people tick! What are their passions, inspirations, dreams, fears, hopes, secrets and hidden talents?

I am good at connecting with people. Here I am, posing for a sculpting class led by Chinese artist Paniqun.

I am a teacher. I feel so much gratitude in spending my days teaching my students about Art.

I am a collaborator. In this example, I teamed my Grade 10 art students with Early Childhood students. They were asked to both use the same painting and interpret it. They painted side by side the whole time and would take periodic breaks to discuss each others works.

I am an artist. While I work in many mediums, I am most drawn to sculpture, ceramics and photography in my own art-making practice.

I am compassionate and feel such huge rewards when I volunteer and help others. I have helped students raise money and fund surgeries for Chinese babies who wait in ”healing homes” to get surgeries and to eventually be adopted.

This baby below had a cleft palate surgery.

I am open minded. I introduce all forms of art to my students. This is a Conceptual photograph by one of my IBDP Visual Art students.

I surround myself with creative people. Here is my friend, Boston born, NYC artist Dan Ackroyd working with my students.

I am creative. Here I am in a performance piece during a good bye for a founding director.

I seek to inspire others. I set up a staff photography group and gave them monthly photo assignments. I then exhibited them in annual art exhibitions. It all culminated with the creation of a coffee table book.

…even jazz musician Harry Connick Jr. has a copy!

I am a risk-taker. Here I am with a student and famous Chinese artist, Ai Wei Wei. My student was writing his Extended Essay on Ai, so I suggested we go knock on his studio door and see if he would let us in for an interview with him….and it worked! It was an amazing experience!

I seek to inspire not only my students, but others in my community. Here I am teaching an adult education class in painting. I have inspired many people to find their hidden talents.

I believe in sharing ideas and good practice. This is an art Job Alike in Beijing where I taught other Art how to etch and emboss into paper using plexiglass and carved linoleum.

I seek to give my students once in a liftime experiences. Here I have taken my G12 Art students to the studios of famous Chinese artists Lin Tianmao and Wang Gongxin.

Here I have taken another Extended Essay student to visit the studio of Chinese artist Shen Jingdong.

I love to photograph people…of all cultures…looking to capture their story. Here is a photo I took of a woman in Tibet.

I seek to challenge my students. Here I am challenging my after school Portfolio group with the task of drawing from a live model.

I share my own growth with my students. Here are my students at my art exhibition in the Cao Changdi Gallery of Art in Beijing.

I celebrate the works of others. This is an exhibition I hung of my staff photography group.

I am curious about other cultures. Here I have traveled to Tibet for their Tibetan New Year celebration.

…and here I am in the grasslands of Inner Mongolia

I always look for options for my students to work with local and international artists.

I am a life long learner. Here is a etching I did in a summer workshop. I am consistently looking for ways to grow as an artist, and teacher. By learning new mediums, I seek to then teach them to my students.