Defining social justice art education can help teacher candidates understand what it is and how to use related pedagogies to address issues of access, equity, and power in their future classrooms. In this article, we explore social justice art education with preservice teachers through a lesson based on the work of socially engaged artist Aram Han…

K-12 art educators choose many artworks for students to examine and discuss throughout a semester or school year. This puts teachers in the role of "choice maker" (Bolin & Hoskins, 2015, p. 40), with the power to communicate to students through the body of images shared over time. Who can be an artist? How do artists express meaning?…

Knowing that vulnerability and risk-taking are both necessary to the educational experience (Willcox, 2017), the author became curious to know what role vulnerability plays in the self-expressive artmaking process, and what could be learned from the uncomfortable feelings that emerge when an artist feels vulnerable. The author also wondered what…

Shyama Golden is an exciting contemporary artist who combines her love for traditional and digital media to create highly stylized and symbolic images. Her work and the work of other female artists can be highlighted in K-12 classrooms as part of a diverse, equitable, and inclusive curriculum. Introducing a contemporary female artist like Shyama…

Contemporary art educators design artmaking experiences around questions, ideas, and themes to help engage students in personally relevant meaning-making (Anderson & Milbrandt, 2005; Gude, 2004, 2013; Walker, 2001). Preservice art teachers are trained to plan lessons and curriculum to move beyond the so-called school art style (Efland, 1976;…

In this article, Sue Uhlig highlights the mixed-media artwork of vanessa german. german uses everyday objects like bottle caps, spoons, and coins assembled en masse to create different assemblages, including power figure sculptures. Through these re-collected objects of the past, german shapes new associations in the present and helps direct…

I am regularly asked, "What does this have to do with art education?" or "How is this art?" For instance, I like to do a project using the ongoing exhibition, do it, which is a curatorial project that started in 1993. At that time, Hans Ulrich Obrist invited 12 artists to submit a score, or set of instructions, that would then…

The United States has a visually stunning history of documenting its natural lands. In the late 1800s, Hudson River School painters captured national parks in the west (National Park Service, 2017). Ansel Adams is famously known for his rich black-and-white photographs of Yosemite and other national parks from the 1920s. In the 1930s, the Works…

Instructors who teach introductory art studio courses face the task of covering large quantities of diverse content in a short amount of time. Developing material and technical knowledge requires time-consuming practice. Yet these courses are essential for launching a relational studio practice embedded in critical thinking. The awkward leap from…

This instructional resource presents contemporary works of art that illuminate and revel in the decadence, decay, and potential for regeneration imminent in organic matter decomposition. In so doing, these artists employ a range of strategies that might be drawn on in the art classroom: observing, illustrating, and reinterpreting decay;…

Encompassing complex scatter plots, visually friendly infographics, and surprising works of contemporary art, data visualizations are as diverse as the disciplines from which they emerge. Over the past few decades, a strand of data visualizations has emerged that engage with ecological and sustainability topics and issues, such as concerns for the…

Activism and art have been intertwined for many years. For instance, songs including "A Change is Gonna Come" (Cooke, 1964), "We Shall Overcome" (Tindley, 1900), and "Freedom Highway" (The Staples Singers, 1965) were an important part of the Civil Rights movement. Further, protest imagery, usually in the form of…

Art education has celebrated pluralism and cultural diversity to bring a more profound understanding between people from different backgrounds. However, since the spread of COVID-19, horrendous discriminatory crimes have increased, such as the 2021 Atlanta massacre, a shooting that targeted Asian American-owned massage parlors. These alarming…

An art curriculum is a composite of cultural expressions, the values and experiences that students and teachers bring with them into the classroom, and the social contexts of the learning environment (Kraehe, 2010). In developing art curricular materials, educators are encouraged to integrate a diversity of cultural perspectives. The contemporary…

The authors explored how art centers for people with disabilities -- a form of day program -- could collaborate with art museums to create inclusive and integrated programming with artists from the broader community. Museums are in a particularly salient period of a paradigm shift, becoming more socially responsive and considering audience…