Art Education Commons^™

Community-Based Participatory Sound Play For Critical Holistic Learning, Shannon Perry, Emmie Pierce, Jon Vogt

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This visual essay explores what unfolded during a month-long participatory sonic space in a community art gallery in the southeastern United States. We walk through the multiple sound stations we designed to provoke playful interactions and challenge dominant hierarchical binaries that often persist in gallery and art education space (e.g., artist/audience, instrument/non-instrument object, music/noise, culture/nature). While considering these various spaces we created for nudging visiting audience members to engage with diverse sonorous objects in becoming active musicmakers, thus becoming audience-participants, we also consider the concepts underpinning our design decisions. We conclude by considering how the living sound exhibit and participatory …

Red Thread, Unknotted: A Visual Self-Inquiry Into Becoming Artist /Educator, Jennifer Jervis

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This arts-based self-inquiry presents a counternarrative of one woman artist/educator navigating identity formation, agency, and resistance within the gendered structures of the contemporary art world. Informed by posthuman feminist theory and guided by a/r/tography, the study uses artmaking as both inquiry and data to challenge the persistent divide between artist and art educator—particularly as experienced by women. Through reflexive writing and textile-based creation, the author offers a material and embodied critique of the systemic expectations that diminish women’s artistic authority and invisibilize their creative labor. The resulting work becomes a site of resistance, reclaiming artist identity through the layered intersections …

Freedom To Create, Freedom To Teach: Lessons From A Liberatory Artmaking Practice, Andrea Allen

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This essay explores the question, “How can a liberatory art practice inform a liberatory art teaching practice?” by examining the artistic process of Iranian artist Mahbube Parnian. Through four key themes (freedom to experiment, learning in community, identity exploration, and art as language) this essay draws parallels between Mahbube’s liberatory artmaking and pedagogical strategies that foster inclusive, student-centered classrooms. Framed within a socio-political climate that increasingly restricts liberatory teaching, this work argues that preserving justice-oriented, creative practices is not only essential to student well-being, but also an act of resistance.

Practicing Freedom: Rethinking Art Education Through Resistance And Observation, Barbara Drobot

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In the post-Soviet space, art education has increasingly been shaped by tensions between traditional academic approaches and the rise of informal, entertainment-oriented models of what is called “creative development”.

After a classical academic art school, many students give up drawing because of the complex presentation of information. In contrast to specialized art education, most modern creative studios for children have reformatted their approach to step-by-step instructions and copying of samples, which limits the independence of students and suppresses artistic development. In this article, the author offers a critical analysis of template teaching methods and substantiates the need to move to …

Best Practices For Hybrid Art Museum Programs For People With Dementia, Pooja Lalwani, Sujal Manohar, Jessica Kay Ruhle

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

The Reflections program at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University offers art gallery tours for adults with dementia and their care partners. Originally an in-person program, Reflections adapted to a virtual model during the COVID-19 pandemic and now utilizes a hybrid model with in-person and online programs. Surveys distributed to Reflections’ participants indicate the benefits of having both in-person and virtual options post-pandemic. Anecdotal survey data and participation statistics show high engagement and satisfaction with the current hybrid mode. Literature about hybrid art education programs for people with dementia remains limited. We offer best practices and insights for …

Crip Time And Creativity: Exploring Intergenerational Artmaking In A Children's Museum, Kelly M. Gross

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This paper investigates the intersection of "crip time" and creativity through an intergenerational artmaking project conducted during an artist residency at a children's museum. The article, framed within the "Shadows and Light: Investigating with Children" project, explores how play-based learning and the non-linear concept of crip time influenced the creative process and outcomes in a museum setting amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The study examines the role of intergenerational interactions in fostering creativity, agency, and engagement among children and the artist-in-residence. The research methodology involved qualitative analysis of imagery and iterative documentation of art processes, emphasizing the impact of flexibility and …

Ritualized Engrossment: Portraits Of Early-Career Faculty Practicing Renewal, Samantha Goss, Libba Willcox

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In higher education, the demands on early-career faculty often lead to mental health challenges and time poverty. This article explores two major issues that negatively impact faculty well-being: the disconnect between doctoral socialization and tenure-track realities, and the struggle to balance unrealistic expectations with sustainable practices. To address the dissonance we felt as early career faculty, we developed a renewal practice called ritualized engrossment, characterized by connection, collaboration, care, and commitment. Grounded in aesthetic approaches and using methods from portraiture and collaborative autoethnography, we present two narrative portraits illustrating the impact of this practice on our well-being. Our portraits illustrate …

Food For Thought: Rituals In Place Based Learning, Natalia Pilato

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In my mother’s kitchen lasting bonds among family, friends, and newcomers are created. Using that space as a point of departure, I explore the significance of pedagogical places outside of classrooms that serve as flavorful ingredients for performative and participatory learning. This article articulates ways in which rituals associated with Sicilian cultural traditions are interwoven and complicit in establishing dispositions for socially engaged learning and teaching in the arts, showing how an ethic of care can transcend generations. With a focus on place-based learning, making art and enjoying food are investigated to show how healthy productive relationships, appreciation for beauty, …

Art Nights: Reimagining Professional Development As A Ritual, Libba Willcox

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Art teachers’ need for connection, passion for artmaking, desire for mentoring, and quest for renewal led me to ask, what happens if we reimagine professional development as ritualized artistic practice? What would occur if our ritual was collaborative and intergenerational? How might ritualized professional development aid the quest for renewal? Pulling imagery and quotes from a larger qualitative and arts-based research study (Willcox, 2017), this visual essay shares what happened when an intergenerational group of art teachers met and engaged in artistic inquiry about their teaching practice. Specifically, it weaves together imagery and quotes to illustrate how our ritual, art …

A Growing Ritual Of Animal Rock Painting, Mary L. Stokrocki Professor Emerita

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This visual essay explores a growing art form that blossomed into a community demand for memorial images. Such curiosities draw people’s attention to look closer, spot details, and become closer to nature. To understand the intense attraction, a neighborhood community formulated more demand, interest, and references to spirituality that reflect life’s rituals.

Lola's Story: Love And Resiliency, Susan R. Whiteland

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Lola, a hand puppet, tells her story of being constructed in a university’s special topics class for the purpose of encouraging older adults who may be experiencing loneliness and isolation. Lola is introduced to an elderly woman who bonds with the puppet. Engagement with the puppet encourages positive emotions that contribute toward resilience and subjective well-being. Lola’s story supports the idea that feelings of happiness and positivity attributed to puppetry may be instrumental in memory retention and overall socio-emotional health.

An Exploration Of Restorative Artmaking During Covid-19, Linda J. Helmick

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This research explores a curriculum, delivered on Zoom, that blended art education with art therapy to support educators’ well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic. To understand the restorative aspects of collective artmaking and reflection, I established a series of artmaking workshops for educators via Zoom. As an artist/researcher/teacher, I made collages as an arts-based inquiry method. I found that participants needed a safe place to express, create, and share in a community of others who have similar needs, desires, and experiences, a respite from the early, terrifying days of the pandemic. Meditation, blended artmaking experiences, and reflection encouraged everyone to feel …

Relational Ecologies: Artistic Engagement And Mentorship Of Adults In Community Spaces, Rebecca Bourgault

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this article, I share insights from research and experience working as a teaching artist and mentor inside and outside traditional institutions. I investigate how relational and contemplative pedagogies promote and sustain authentic relationships of reciprocity. Narrating recent experiments with mentoring practices that emerged from the cultural landscapes of adults engaged in arts learning, the paper highlights new connections discovered through a research model borrowed from intuitive inquiry. Findings are presented as reflective stories, journal entries, or field notes gathered while mentoring graduate art education students and participating in a community of practice in the visual arts. The article demonstrates …

Grandma Layton: A Cinderella Story, Sierra R. Mccloskey, Liz Langdon, Zoe K. Vincent, Katie A. Rice

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Students and their professor created a method of arts-informed research (AIR) in the practice of community-based art education to bring community members together, separated by age and distance. Essential features of this method included analyzing how local artist Elizabeth “Grandma” Layton addressed issues of ageing and mental health in her art and the direct engagement of participants in coloring her line designs. This postcard coloring project was designed during a time where extreme social distancing was in place and adapted for fifth-grade art classes and residents of a retirement community.

In AIR the choice of artist, activity, medium of expression, …

Intergenerational And Intragenerational Connections Within A University Art Museum Program For People With Dementia, Sujal Manohar, Jessica Kay Ruhle

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This visual essay highlights the impacts of the Nasher Museum of Art’s Reflections program, which engages people with dementia (PWD) and their care partners through interactive art museum tours. This program’s conversation-based tours with built-in time to socialize are designed to foster intergenerational and intragenerational connections between PWD and museum gallery guides, PWD and care partners, and between PWD. Discussions about artwork are visitor-driven and encourage lifelong learning among participants. Anecdotal feedback from Reflections participants and gallery guides confirms the value of relationship building, improving quality of life for PWD.

By fostering community and strong connections, Reflections programs help reduce …

Liberation Kitchen: Annotating Intergenerational Conversations Among Black Women In Art And Education, Gloria J. Wilson, Amber C. Coleman, Pamela Harris Lawton, Asia Price

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this essay, we, four Black women art educators, draw from Black feminisms and Afrofemcentrism. Our practice considers nuanced ways that Black women curate spaces of communal care, which position forms of dialogic encounters with one another. We put forward aspects of Black life, as lived in and through sharing intimacies of the geospatial and as continuation of Black radical traditions. We argue that a kitchenspace indexes a Black praxis, centering intergenerational knowledge-sharing and methodology toward liberation. We think with Black feminist scholar/artists and insist a method of self-annotating, indexing our lives into the otherwise absences of Black women’s narratives …

Pearl Greenberg Award Lecture, Pamela H. Lawton

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Pearls Of Wisdom: A Portrait Of Artist-Educator Pearl Greenberg, Pamela Harris Lawton, Angela M. Laporte

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

This article examines the life of Dr. Pearl Greenberg, artist-educator-researcher and co-founder of the Committee on Lifelong Learning through narratives of remembrance by the authors, art education colleagues, and students who knew her. Using the qualitative research method of portraiture, an image emerges of Pearl as characterized by three patterns or themes consistently mentioned in the narratives: experiential knowledge, candidness, and supportive/mentorship. In addition, quotes from the “Aging Monologues,” Dr. Greenberg’s own narrative inquiry research, collecting narratives from participants aged 21 through 96 on their perspectives on aging, are incorporated to complete a rich, artful, and multi-layered portrait of Pearl.

Journal Theme: Reflections, Susan R. Whiteland, Angela M. Laporte, Liz Langdon

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Full Journal

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Art Education For Older Adults: Rationale, Issues And Strategies, Melanie G. Davenport, Pamela H. Lawton, Marjorie Manifold

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

The authors assert that not only can older adults benefit from engaging in art education, but that art education can benefit from engaging with older adults.

Rationale, issues and strategies of facilitating art education for older adults is described through several vignettes.

The Unicorn As Lifelong Companion: Remixing Inclusive, Intergenerational Art Education Journeys With The Freedom Of Froebel And Wildness Of Waldorf, Courtney Lee Weida, Carlee Bradbury

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In what ways can the symbol of the unicorn represent and inform collaborative, intergenerational visions of art education? This paper outlines some of the roles of the unicorn as a theme and a framework for contemporary applications of art education relating to enduring Froebelian art education, Waldorf-inspired art teaching, and inclusive community art practice as a form of remix. This research seeks to illuminate enduring but oft-neglected areas of inspiring art curriculum for teachers and learners across the lifespan.

Prosthetic Ontology Into Pedagogy: Applying Garoian’S Theory To The Performing Arts, Elise Lael Kieffer

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Prosthetic pedagogy, as developed by Charles Garoian, provides a framework for using artificial-real worlds created by the arts to influence and impact teaching practice. The prosthetic space is artificial, separate, from the artist and audience, yet it is felt authentically, as if it were part of their being. Garoian explored prosthetic pedagogy through visual arts and museum experiences. This research further examines prosthetic pedagogy by applying it the Theatre. The art of theatre builds worlds onstage and through performance that allow performers to be and exist apart from their physical selves in the realm of prosthetic reality. The artist and …

Stories Of Community Practice, Artistic Ambivalence, And Emergent Pedagogies, Rebecca Bourgault

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

The reflections and questions discussed in the paper emerged from a teaching artist experience in community-art that led to the examination of the contrasting values between the disciplinary paradigms of social practices, community-based and participatory arts and that of the contemporary artworld aesthetics. As goals of art for social justice often contradict the perception of artistic merit based on aesthetic quality, working at the intersection of artistic creation and community development demands a shift in perspectives. The position demands going beyond one’s artistic ambivalences, to include participants in a reciprocal relationship, attentive to the fact that any goals of empowerment …

Editorial: Journeys, Susan R. Whiteland

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Staying Gold: How A Group Of University Students Created Intergenerational Connections Through Art Museum Programming And Community Collaboration, Eli Burke, Carissa Dicindio Ph.D

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

In this article, we examine ways in which an intergenerational art program, Stay Gold, helped build relationships between queer youth and elders in an art museum to combat loneliness, isolation, and disconnection. This museum program was initially designed by university students in a graduate art education course to help form connections between queer youth and elders through art-making, sharing stories, and conversations about art. Participants play a large role in shaping the direction of the program, and the program continues to grow and evolve to include more opportunities for collaboration between youth and elders through group projects and dialogue. Although …

Inverse Inclusion: Transforming Dispositions Of Disability And Inclusion, Angela M. Laporte

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

Inverse inclusion, a novel pedagogy, transforms preservice teachers’ dispositions about disability and inclusion during an action research study of two university intercession service learning course collaborations with a community-based art program for disabled adults (clients). In this approach, university students (preservice teachers) rotate and reflect on roles as student, teacher, teacher’s assistant, and observer within an inclusive art class. Among these rotations, the student position relinquishes their hierarchical perspective as teacher, assistant, and observer, and situates them as a collaborative learner, conducive to building egalitarian relationships with clients. Based on qualitative data from university student participants in the form …

Building Relationships: Art Making And Empty Bowls, Susan R. Whiteland

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

How can collaborative art making foster relationship building for those involved? A Problem Based Learning project that investigated food insecurity and the creation of clay soup bowls provided an answer for a number of students, and various community members. This article follows the story of a university professor’s involvement with her students in a partnership with a local intermediate school when they pursued an initiative to include art in their STEAM based curriculum dedicated to meeting a local need. Older adults, elementary students, and a variety of other interested individuals joined the effort and demonstrated how art can build relationships.

Intergenerational Collaboration: A Professional Journey Begins, Camilla Mccomb, Bonnie Capling, Kristyn Demint, Courtney Miller, Jane Montero

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.

Connecting Through Creative Collaborations, Pamela H. Lawton

International Journal of Lifelong Learning in Art Education

No abstract provided.