Community School of the Arts Instructors

"My first art love is probably photography, and I was introduced to that when I was in middle school and experimented with disposable film cameras. I made my friends be my models and I even kept meticulous scrapbooks which kids these days might think are ancient relics."

"As an instructor, I am interested in individuality. My primary goal as an instructor is to cultivate an environment where my students can find validity in their dance abilities through exploration and self-discovery."

"I was first introduced to filmmaking the summer before 5th grade when I took a stop motion animation class. The camera we used took floppy disks, and I can still remember the stacks and stacks of floppy disks everyone had next to their computer while editing."

"The hardest part of being an artist is learning how to accept mistakes you make and develop from them. Staying motivated and on task is also hard; especially with all the demands of deadlines, school, work, and family."

"Knitting in a group has always been a joyful experience, people doing what I love and teaching each other different ways of doing or looking at projects."

"Both reading and writing have always been a big part of my life and my routines. Writing is a practice, and many parts of it become better with time and effort."

"My mom always encouraged me and my brother to draw and make things, so I think I knew I was an artist from the time I was very young. Middle school is when I knew I wanted to be an art teacher."

"I started drawing cartoons about age 5 and loved it. I especially love to work with mixed media. I specialize in watercolor, oils and pencil."

"Music has been a love of mine for as long as I can remember. As a kid, I participated in choirs outside of school (instead of sports) and attended summer music camps. Shortly before I was a teenager, my parents gifted me a "guitar starter kit," which sparked my playing of instruments."

"From my earliest memories, I was always creating characters and building worlds, but I didn’t know much about creative writing until I took an intro class in college. The first short story I ever wrote was in that intro class. My professor submitted it for a scholarship, and I won. I was shocked. I didn’t know anyone would care about anything I’d written. I had only ever written for myself."