GAEA Conference Fall 2024

How does working alongside students during studio time build relationships and foster a community within the studio? For art educators Morgan Clifton and Victoria Goeckel, their job as art educators is to nurture connection and collaboration with and amongst students by working alongside them as artists and mentors, beyond the traditional interpretation of “teaching”. When students step into their classrooms, they are transported to a space that serves as a shared studio for the teacher-artist and the student artists. For Morgan and Victoria, this practice shapes up differently within their respective high school and elementary spaces. For Morgan, this practice has evolved into a treasured tradition after a student jokingly asked her if they could be her for the day, igniting a revolution in collaborative studio making. Each Friday, a student has the opportunity to take on the mantle of teacher for the day, visit peers one-on-one, check in, talk about ideas, offer feedback and suggestions, while Morgan creates alongside the other students. For Victoria, this practice is best embodied in the annual school mural that is created with the year’s fifth grade students. Each year the fifth grade students spend months planning, drafting, and voting on a new school mural, followed by priming, sketching, and painting the mural before revealing it to the school community each May. Students participate in each step alongside Victoria, learning the practical skills of a working artist and finding permanent ownership and legacy of a space in the school. Intentional communal art education experiences such as these, when students and teachers share their workspace and artistic practice, encourages conversation and exploration of the artmaking process between peers and teachers alike as artists working collaboratively. This workshop will explore these practices and help other educators seek out these opportunities within their own classrooms.

We will be drawing an easy but realistic looking eye and a spider web-like pattern that will connect our inner and our outer world. By visually connecting these two elements, we aim to explore how they interact and influence each other in our daily lives. Understanding and being aware of both our inner and outer worlds can help us gain insights into our motivations for positive and negative choices and the overall reactions to our experience and thought patterns.

Dive into the world of visual literacy, discovering innovative methods to blend it into art education and beyond. This session highlights the crucial role of visual literacy in today's image-centric society, offering practical strategies and activities suitable for art classrooms and various educational contexts. Explore how to make visual literacy a seamless part of learning experiences.

Are you considering pursuing a graduate degree but unsure of how you will do it? In this session, a panel of former and current graduate students from the Art Education program at the University of Georgia (UGA) will share their strategies for completing an in-person graduate degree, whether part-time or full-time. UGA faculty will be present to answer questions about the Master’s, Specialist, and Doctoral degree programs!

Puppets are used around the world! We use puppets to tell stories. Puppets can represent ourselves or be a character and allow us to act out a story, work out problems, and express ourselves. You can do it solo or with others. Puppet characters, props, and sets can be made from simple materials, much of which is cheap or free: wood, paper, metal, leather, cardboard, cardstock,, fabric, chopsticks, rods, dowels, cotton batting, string, pipe cleaners, wires.

As the world continuously evolves at a rapid pace, we’re asked to look at traditional mediums in new and innovative ways. How can we develop an exchange among these disciplines traditionally overlooked and/or over generalized within discourse to provide a deeper understanding of their relevance, flexibility, nuances, and intimacy in today’s commercialized, digital culture in tandem with younger audiences through practice. All will be revealed in a short talk detailing research that addresses these fundamental questions, followed by a workshop where participants create their very own print through a fusion of digital and traditional printmaking processes to produce various results!

Demonstrate and discuss how teachers can integrate museum field trips to view artwork of artists whose pieces are on the AP Art History 250 in our own state. Through first hand observation of artwork in the High Museum collection, teacher's can make connections with the pieces. They then can in turn bring that information back to their classrooms or plan trips with their own students to return to the High allowing students to share in the experience.

Local Artist, Leah Kellaway, shares about her work. Leah Kellaway (she/her) is an art educator and award-winning illustrator based in Atlanta, GA who blends illustration, fine art, and design to create expressive work that focuses on themes of character and portraiture, everyday magic and adventure, and inspiration and empowerment. After a decade of working independently and collaboratively to solve a multitude of visual problems, she founded Kellaway Creative Collaborative in 2023 to provide vibrant, bold, unique visual storytelling to businesses and individuals of all sizes and kinds. Kellaway holds a Bachelor’s of Fine Arts in Graphic Design from the University of Georgia (‘16) and a Master of Fine Arts in Illustration from the University of Hartford (‘23).

With hundreds of free instructional resources available through GaDOE Inspire, find out how to customize current GaDOE lessons and to create your own lessons within the Inspire platform. You will learn how to curate your own content collection and how to create Velocity activities. Velocity is a free digital learning tool available to all GA educators within Inspire. Bring your laptop and find out about the free resources that are available to you.

In this workshop, you will create a variety of sample book making techniques that can be incorporated into your classroom or for personal use. From quick and easy 1 page folded books to multi-page stitched bindings all levels can find something to take away and use.

Join us to learn about contemporary ceramic artists and explore the fascinating world of nudibranch sea slug vases. This workshop will be led by two experienced ceramic artist-educators, who have worked at both primary and secondary levels. During the workshop, you will have the opportunity to create a hand-built piece and take it back to your classroom, along with a comprehensive lesson plan. This is an excellent chance to enhance your skills and knowledge of ceramics in a fun and interactive way.

We will be creating bullseye, spiral, and Millefore Canes and turn them into Jewelry.

Most of us are familiar with relief printmaking because it is easy and relatively easy to do with a class. This is a quick and easy way to teach the concept of intaglio printing. This is a hands on workshop that will go through the printing steps. Participants will start with a drawing, create a "plate" using clear report covers, print multiple copies, and finally color their prints. (if you want more time to print, come prepared with one or more drawings already completed)

In this workshop we will be making a basic pinhole camera constructed out of an Altoid Mint tin. After painting, drilling holes, and sanding your camera, black and white darkroom photography paper will be placed inside of the camera. The cameras are then left to expose from anywhere between two days and 365 days! The longer the exposure, the more light trails from the sun you will record. Due to this extremely long exposure, moving objects such as cars and people become obsolete and water becomes very still and flattens out. Mysterious colors including reds, greens, blues, etc., appear from the black and white photo paper. Your image on the photo paper will be a “negative”, so you will need to invert it to make it a positive image. During the session, we will discuss how to keep the camera stationary for the duration of the exposure and show examples of successful exposures.

This is a exciting hands-on workshop incorporating the Contemporary Art of Bisa Butler. Participants will create a self-portrait embellishing with Prismacolors, tons of fabric choices, and various found objects to create a powerful and colorful work of art. You will receive a link to a Google site with details of the entire project, including a student checklist and exit ticket. Participants will be able to take back to their classes an engaging, exciting lesson! https://sites.google.com/g.gcpsk12.org/bisa-butler/home

Get a new perspective on an old classroom staple - tempera! This workshop will enhance your painting skills and introduce you to the range of techniques possible with Blick Premium Tempera. It’s lightfast, versatile, easy to work with, and performs many of the same techniques as watercolor, gouache, and acrylics. We’ll create washes and layers, learn reduction techniques, and employ a variety of painting knives and tools. Take away a “painting in pieces”, some great supplies, and a new appreciation for the tempera medium.

This session will combine visual presentations, lesson samples with handouts, show and tell displays with favorite materials/tools, interactive conversations, and group discussions in order to share ideas and provide participants with helpful information. The Fulton County Adaptive Art Program has thrived for 28 years under the support and guidance of many amazing Fine Arts Coordinators and Educators. There are currently 16 teachers on our fantastic Adaptive Art team. We serve hundreds of students at the ES, MS, and HS levels with varying artistic abilities and would love to share our knowledge with fellow teachers. There will be several Fulton County Adaptive Art teachers facilitating this casual workshop session to allow for individual questions and conversations.

In this hand's on workshop, participants will discuss portraits and how to bring a fun spin by using animals as the main subject. We will discuss animal portraits and look at hand drawn, digital, and photo collaged examples. **Please bring any preferred supplies you like. (some supplies will be provided)**

Maintaining a studio practice while being an art educator can be quite challenging. However, finding a balance between teaching and creativity is essential to our personal growth. This hands-on workshop will explore various sketchbook and journal prompts to help you jumpstart or revive your own art practice. Hear from a practicing artist educator about effective strategies to maintain an art practice at the end of a long workday.

In this workshop, participants will walk through sample AP student portfolios. These portfolios received a five and were signified as perfect, not having any points deducted. Participants will learn strategies to encourage students who are working on an AP 3D portfolio, aligning the student’s strongest art making skills with conceptual modes for AP success. Participants will explore these students’ previous portfolios in drawing and 2D to discover techniques, skills, and ideas that helped them scaffold to 3D thinking and best practices for success. Additionally, participants will use found objects, reflection sheets, and skills in drawing/2D to create an assemblage-based sculpture/box inspired by artist Joseph Cornell. Participants are encouraged to bring a collection of 2D/3D collage/assemblage materials for use in their sculpture, however, some materials will be available on hand for use. All levels welcome, not just AP art educators. 

Come learn how to lash a bone structure and weave with ease using natural materials. Learn how to introduce a project like this one to your 7th-12th grade students. Using river reeds, you will follow instructions to create a vessel of your own. You can choose to add color or beads to your design. I invite you to bring in your own charms and small toys, any things that the reed can pass through, thereby being woven into your basket (this lesson pairs well with polymer clay projects). It gets a little wet sometimes because we must soak the wood in water for malleability. Get ready to have some fun!

In this workshop we will use modpodge/acrylic medium, citrasolv, and gelli plates to create phototransfers. We will then use different medias to add to the prints and talk about how to incorporate the lesson into different types of visual arts classes (photography, drawing, painting, and even pottery). Everyone will leave with multiple examples.

Explore the transformative power of art in facilitating conversations around challenging subjects in K-12 education. This session delves into some of the no-cost resources and strategies from GPB Education for utilizing the arts to engage students in processing difficult topics. Discover media collections and activities from our PBS partners that help foster emotional resilience, empathy, and critical thinking through artistic expression. Model techniques for creating a safe and supportive environment where students can explore complex issues through various artistic mediums. Join GPB to harness the potential of art as a tool for facilitating meaningful dialogue and empowering students to navigate challenging realities with creativity and resilience.

Have you always wanted to learn how to crochet? This class will begin with the absolute basics of chaining, simple stitches, and making rows. Hooks and yarn provided. It's a great skill to learn for yourself or teach students. All ages can learn!

A Hands on Mixed Media Workshop where participants will create a collage then use black liquid glue (mixture of white school glue and ink) to outline the collage pieces to create "spaces" to color with a variety of media. The Final step is to use white ink (or acrylic paint) to add interest to the collage.