Art Educator

With a Bachelor of Arts in Communication, and art, I have been working with arts organizations and making commissioned art for seven years. During and following my undergraduate studies, I have graciously been given many opportunities to teach, curate, and create art. A recent project was in collaboration with the Holland Arts Council as their Artist in Resident, working with ten high school students to create an installation piece for the city. I asked each student to bring in a textile piece that reflected their sense of home. My intent in collecting textiles was to explore how they materialize the student’s relationships to--and beliefs about--home and community. Through this project, communal place-making became defined by utilizing materials that embody physical relationships, memories, traditions, hopes, or aspirations. The overall goal of the project was to allow each student to become attentive to question, and transfigure the way they dwell and identify themselves within the places they inhabit.

I worked for three years with a neighborhood development nonprofit based out of Holland, Michigan, as their Community Arts Coordinator. I had the joy of meeting with a group of neighborhood girls to explore art making as a process, and not merely as a means to an end. We helped each other slow down, and attend to what was happening along the way. As I would work in collaboration with these girls and their families, I began incorporating themes of home, community, and the changing seasons, which built the foundation for the work I am doing today.

Summer of 2020 I was able to work for the Saugatuck Center for the Arts as an Outdoor Art Educator for migrant families. Luckily, we were able to be on the front lines of navigating outdoor summer school during COVID. My responsibilities included creating curriculum for fifteen second and third graders in partnership with the Outdoor Discovery Center and the Fennville School System.

From 2020 to 2023, I have been leading adult and kid natural dye workshops and summer camps. I most recently was working with Sauguatuck Center for the Arts as their exhibiting artist. I lead their summer camps focus of how to connect the natural world, art and the outdoors. Most recently, I am learning how to scale my Natural Dye production to be able to educate the community in how to grow and use a natural dye garden.