QUEST
Guest Art Facilitator/Billings Public Schools Gifted Education Program
2019-2020
Nadine Barnett, Spencer Anderson and Deanna O'Neill, Gifted and Talented Specialists with the Billings Public School's Quest Program, invited me to work with their 2nd through 5th graders for the 2019-2020 school year. My role was to facilitate their creative processes. The students and I discussed how we would be building community through art around environmental issues in our Yellowstone River Valley, how art could be a framework for conversations and inquiry, how listening to all ideas (our own and well as those of others) adds layers to our idea development and how failures can be sources of new ideas. These concepts melded well with our chosen art form - assemblages- and our emphasis on alternative materials, especially recycled and upcycled ones and with their classes with regional environmental specialists. We were grateful to the high school wood shop students, who created 12 x 12 inch shadow boxes out of discarded shipping pallets. Though the Covid pandemic interrupted our year and halted our plans for a public exhibition of their completed works, they may be seen below.