Congratulations to Michael Anderson, an art teacher at Westlake High School in New York, New York, and Carolyn Berry, an art teacher at Lawrence Free State High School in Kansas City, Kansas.
The two recipients are the first to receive the Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design/National Art Education Association Creative Educator Award. This award, part of the NAEA Co-sponsored Academy marks a growing partnership between the National Art Education Association (NAEA) and Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design (MIAD).
The recipients are chosen from a pool of many applicants, based on the way they successfully utilize and incorporate digital media with traditional art processes across all areas of their high school art curriculum.
Michael Anderson received his BA in Studio Art from the University of Minnesota and an MA in Art and Art Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. He has lived and traveled abroad extensively, and is interested in the arts as a vehicle for cultural exploration and understanding. Most recently he has studied Tibetan Art in the Indian Himalayas and developed art curricula on the topic for high school students. He likes to use his travels and first-hand knowledge of other cultures as source material for his teaching, bringing back video footage, photographs and artistic works for use in the classroom.
He works primarily with photography and digital media. Being in close proximity to NYC he uses contemporary and historical art examples a great deal in his work with students. Michael lives in the Bronx and teaches art at Westlake High School in Thornwood, New York.
Carolyn Berry has been teaching high school art in Lawrence, Kansas (both for Lawrence High School and for Lawrence Free State) for 18 years. She has been instrumental in securing equipment and developing the curriculum for the digital design courses at her school. In addition, she has experience working in college admissions (at Columbus College of Art) as well as museum education and business. She received her BS Education at North West Missouri State University and her MS Ed at Pittsburg State University, in Pittsburgh, Kansas. She has also continued to take studio courses at Arrowmont School of Crafts, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at Milwaukee Institute of Art & Design.
For the past eight years she has increasingly used the computer as a tool in her drawing, portfolio and advanced placement art courses. She teaches her students to use the digital processes for experimentation as it frees them to duplicate an image easily, and pushes them to combine digitally created substrates with other real media processes, where appropriate. She feels that this approach allows and encourages visual play and rediscovery in art making, which in turn can lead to advanced capabilities in conceptualization. She says, “Embracing technology in the classroom has challenged me and kept me growing as an artist and a teacher.”
Her student work is a testament to the spirit and success of that experimentation, risk-taking and ability to resolve visual issues while enjoying the process and creating a powerful and effective end product.
As a part of the Creative Educator Award, Mr. Anderson and Ms. Berry will receive a full scholarship to attend MIAD’s summer Creative Educators Institute 2006 (A National Art Education Association Co-sponsored Academy). In addition, one of her students will receive a full scholarship (with tuition, room and board) to MIAD’s Pre-College Majors program in the summer of 2006 as well.
Staff at MIAD look forward to continuing to work with Michael Anderson and Carolyn Berry, both through their active involvement in National Art Education Association and through MIAD’s programs for teachers and 6-12th grade students.
