Artist in Residence at Indiana University of PA

This is already my lucky year for residency work. Not only am I conducting a 60 day residency with one of my favorite teachers, but I am also getting to work with newly appointed professor, Dr. Paula Purnell at IUP. My plate is full already for 2010!

The residency at IUP is a course taught by Paula entitled Creative Experiences to Enhance Literacy Acquisition. It is designed to provide teacher candidates with "art" experiences to use in the classroom. A daunting task to be sure.....most classrooms are so full of pre-calculated and necessary curriculum that providing an art approach is difficult to fit in the schedule.

However, eleven young and bright women are taking this course, so we will endeavor to provide them with the artistic resources that Paula and I both love. Today was an introduction day and we did paper collage work relating to "winter" and also wrote our own cinquain poems to relate in a language arts form.

I am excited to work with Paula and the students....I am hoping to include some of their writings here on the site.