A little summary of some of my work from 2024.

The learning curve has been steep and its good to recap and reflect on this year.

The current climate for art education is often disheartening, with art departments under increasing pressure, teachers everywhere fighting for their subject to be valued and for people to understand the importance of art education in a fraught battle ground dominated by the STEM subjects (Science Technology Engineering and Maths).  Those who advocate STEAM  – add the A for Arts - acknowledge the importance of creativity in any process.

I have been involved in a project with The Courtauld Gallery (where I work as a freelance tutor) looking at the links between Art and Maths, stemming from the idea that any subject can be taught effectively through Art and in this case also touching on History, Geography, Science and Technology. We began by examining the Islamic Metalwork and Italian Maiolica pottery in the Courtauld’s varied and beautiful collection, best known for its French Impressionist work.

I am very proud to have my article published in NSEAD magazine (National Society for Education in Art and Design), Issue 21 ‘The Student Voice’ Spring 2018

The Article describes a 2-day workshop, The Art of Change devised and delivered by artist Sarah Carne with myself Annabel Johnson  for Children’s Art School in  June 2017.

About a month ago, I returned to La Biennale di Venezia 2017 – Viva Arte Viva and found myself reflecting on my past four visits and re-thinking who I am and what I do? 

Over the last 9 months I have been working with colleague and friend Alicia Miller to programme the Engage International Conference in Glasgow.

Engage are the national association for gallery education the UK’s most effective advocacy and support organisation for gallery education.

At Children’s Art School, not only do we work directly with artists but in our after school art clubs and courses we reference living, practicing artists all the time so that children can see the real place art has in our world and the value that it has.

Teacher/educator/curator/mother/artist

I am very excited to share  my most recent article

A Professional Journey: Teacher/educator/curator/mother/artist has just been published by engage, the national society for gallery education.

After taking my children to family events as part of Tate Britain’s Big and Small programme, I was inspired by composer Neil Luck and artist Dan Scott’s work for children, that invites them to respond to music through mark making.

Will you go up? Or down?

This summer artist Sarah Carne will explore in The Art of the Game –  our two-day children’s art course with children – the possibility of building a human scale game similar to snakes and ladders incorporating issues that interest them. These ideas could could be as broad as recycling, climate change, school uniform or the length of their holidays.

They will be encouraged to share and debate opinions – and perhaps disagree, whilst developing skills in making: design, painting and building.

A gallery, two schools and an artist:
in search of missing lessons

The project Hidden Curriculum investigates forms of learning in school outside the official curriculum, and the informal ways in which secondary school students learn from one another.