The main goal in my teaching is to guide students toward a rich and fulfilling understanding of why art is important to them and to our culture at large. I want them to respond enthusiastically to the world around them, to learn to trust their intuitions, and to understand that making art is another way of learning new things about themselves and their world. I hope that this process involves the cultivation of critical skills: an understanding and appreciation of the lessons of the past, and a desire to critically address them in current practice. While making art certainly entails an element of "self-expression", it is not solely that, and I hope students graduate knowing the social value of art and its impact on the larger spheres of life.

What do you most enjoy about teaching? While lecturing plays an important role in introducing concepts and projects in my courses, it is probably minimal in comparison with classes in other subjects; my students will spend most of their class time making drawings or paintings. The aspect of my teaching that I most enjoy is the collective discussions (which we refer to as critiques) at the conclusion of projects. They give each student opportunities to offer constructive responses to the work of their colleagues, and to reflect on their own approaches to the challenges posed by the assignment. This setting allows me to make formal connections and comparisons between individual works, to discuss the work in an historical perspective, and to assess the overall success of my communication of ideas to the class. It's really gratifying to see and hear the level of critical discourse grow and develop over the term.

It may sound like a cliche, but I enjoy all of my classes! The foundation year is particularly rewarding because it requires me to be ever mindful the value of the basic principles of drawing and painting, which we tend to take for granted as we gain experience. They are ideas and skills that students will repeatedly return to while in the program, and well afterward, into their professional careers.  Putting visual experiences and concepts into easily understood language can be challenging, but it is critically important in the foundational years. At the other end of the   spectrum, supervising Grads students is a lot of fun too. In most cases they are already well experienced, professional artists; they bring sophisticated knowledge and insights to the critiques - along with some very lively, spirited discussion.

What is your particular approach to teaching? Because visual art in its various forms is so historically tied to the poles of technique and iconoclasm, I try to devise projects that on the one hand have some artistic precedent, but that on the other hand encourages them to take a personal approach, to aim for a solution that will shed some light on their individual motivations. To become a virtuoso technician is admirable, but I encourage them to aim higher, to learn to be self-reflexive, to try to define for themselves the qualities that separate good art from great art. Sometimes that means rejecting technique in the service of rebellion, as the history of art has shown us again and again. That's when it gets scary for students, because it means they'll have to go "out on a limb" with their experiments. And experiments can fail. I tend to appreciate students who are willing to take the risks over the safer road.

How do your research and teaching activities intersect and enhance each other? In the largely assignment-based first and second year courses, the studio projects I propose are often based on aspects of my own work. In the advanced, senior and grad levels, which are more project-based and individually mandated, I try to stay current with the plurality of contemporary art practice and theory by reading journals, visiting exhibitions and topical criticism, which in turn informs my own studio practice.  In any case, when I see what students have produced with their particular and specific experiences of life and culture (which are in many cases are so very different from my own), I often find myself inspired to re-look at the world - and my own work - with "new eyes".*