“A teacher... should act as a guide, a positive and challenging force. When a goal is set and reached through struggle, questioning and personal decisions, the student gains confidence and grows as a result. When the target is close and easily reached, the teacher is there to help move it back.”

— Michael Rich, Professor of Art, Roger Williams University

Philosophy

statement of teaching philosophy:

I expect my students to understand the conventions of painting and drawing in order to subvert them. My own studio practice, rooted in the modern practices of painting, drawing and print while exploring contemporary ideas of abstraction serves as a model for my approach to teaching. I push students to explore the boundaries and limitations of their media as well as their conceptual thinking. The introduction of the formal elements of color, light, line and gesture acts as a springboard for investigating larger ideas. The challenge to my students is to ask themselves what it means to be an artist today: to see and respond to the world in a decidedly visual way. I push students to work in a responsive way to the things that move them, to find their authentic voice. My students are expected to develop a vocabulary of a visual language that is uniquely their own and to challenge the meanings they create.

As I see it, the teacher's primary task is to understand who a student is as an individual and to help them give voice to their particular interests, ideas and inspirations. I spend a long time listening to a student, trying to understand who they are in order to engage them in a dialogue with myself as well as their peers and artists of the past to better understand where the potential lies in their work. When each student is considered as an individual, the task then is to draw out of them their unique histories, experiences, cultural identities and orientation to celebrate the uniqueness in who they are. This is the rich and deep well from which I encourage them to draw material as the basis for their work. From there, choices about media, imagery and approach are seen through the lens of identity, making their mark and creating their visual language.

Rather than simply demonstrate how something should be done, I like to present questions and possibilities. A teacher, I believe should act as a guide, a positive and challenging force. When a goal is set and reached through struggle, questioning and personal decisions, the student gains confidence and grows as a result. When the target is close and easily reached, the teacher is there to help move it back. An artist, alone in the studio has to learn to ask difficult questions of themselves in order to move beyond what is known to him or her already. Good teaching prepares a student for a daily practice in art and the sustained, studio investigation that is a life in creating, searching for answers to those questions.

teaching

2000 - present Professor of Art (Full Time, Tenured): Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

Undergraduate Courses Taught: Foundations of Painting • Oil Painting • Painting IV • Special Topics in Painting: Media Exploration, Color and the Painted Image, New Genres in Painting • Painting the Figure • Advanced Figure Painting • Inter-Media Studio • Foundations of Drawing • Drawing the Figure • Advanced Drawing: Process and Content • Issues in Contemporary Art • Senior Studio • Visual Arts Thesis

2012 - 2013 Alumni Mentor, Painting Department, Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA

Responsibilities: Graduate studio visits and guest critiques over the course of an entire academic year allowing a student-mentor relationship to develop as the students work progressed; Delivered a lecture on my painting and drawing along with fellow Alumni Mentor, Sarah Walko; Undergraduate course and studio visits; Participation in Painting department Open Studio events; Developed a Master Print series with the help of SCAD Director of Printmaking, Eun Lee, the print shop technical staff and selected students in the Printmaking Department.

1997 - 2000 Professor of Painting (Full Time): Savannah College of Art and Design, Savannah, GA

Graduate Courses Taught: Formal Aspects of Painting
Undergraduate Courses Taught: Abstract Painting • Advanced Life Painting • Advanced Painting • Color and the Painted Image • Intermediate Painting • Landscape Painting • Large Format Painting • Life Painting • Oil Painting • Senior Seminar
Foundations Courses Taught: Color Theory • Drawing 1 • Drawing 2 • Life Drawing 1

Administration:

2017 - 2020 Chair, Visual Arts, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

2016 - 2017 Program Director, Visual Art Studies, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

2005 - 2014 Program Coordinator, Visual Arts Studies, Roger Williams University, Bristol, RI

Achievements: Development of assessment rubrics and practices of Visual Arts classes, student development and overall program performance • Academic advisement • Faculty adviser to the Art Society (a student-run organization) • Curriculum development of Foundations and BA programs • Creation of the BFA in Visual Art Studies Degree Program • Creation of the RWU Art on Campus Program to exhibit faculty, student and regional art • Creation of the Emerging Artist Program in conjunction with regional High Schools

Fellowships

2018 - 2019 Diversity and Inclusion Faculty Fellow • Roger Williams University

I am very fortunate to participate in a peer-mentored community of practice that recognizes, rewards, and supports professional growth around diversity, social justice and inclusion in the classroom. This community is intended to be a space of growth where faculty can grapple with tough questions about the pedagogy of inclusion. This is a space where faculty can test out ideas, seek feedback, and learn about centering diverse and inclusive practices across all disciplines.

The D & I Fellows not only have a unique opportunity to participate in a community of practice where they hone and develop their own classroom methodologies in ways that center a pedagogy of social justice, equity, inclusion, and diversity, but they also shape the content that will be shared outward. The work is challenging, but is also deeply impactful.