Greetings, my name is Chris Rose. I am a professional artist, a teacher, a father and a graduate student
in City College’s school of Art Education. I have a background in painting with a BFA from Virginia Commonwealth University and an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. I have worked as an artist in NYC since 2003 and I have exhibited my work in shows around the country and abroad. Before attending City College, I worked professionally in a number of museums and cultural institutions around the city including The Drawing Center, The Noguchi Museum and The National Academy of Design.
Recently I have been working as a teaching artist with Studio in a School and the Greater Ridgewood Youth Council, and as a museum educator with the Rubin Museum. I am very fortunate to be super busy, receiving a broad base of experience while still in school. My work had taken me into public elementary and middle schools around the city.
My thesis topic has to do with the visual resources teachers use to show art to their students. As an art student I was reluctant to engage with the study of art, though I was an avid art maker. In my youth I lived in the suburbs of Washington D.C. and while I took extra art lessons after school from the age of nine, a day in the city perusing museums would have seemed a total drag to me. Because of this reluctance to explore on my own, the artwork and resources I saw in my school art room and on field trips were the only exposure I had to the larger world of fine art. My development as an artist was very much inspired by the work I saw in class and I am eager to learn how best to use visual resources in my lessons.
Through my research I aim to find out what factors motivate teachers when they select artworks for their lessons, the posters they hang on their walls and the books they keep in their rooms. I am learning that there are several different ideas about how to employ visual resources. Some teachers use images of artworks to introduce or reinforce the artistic medium being used. Others use works to develop visual literacy and visual culture. Teacher also use visual images to introduce their students to artists and works from different cultures, nationalities and backgrounds.
At the same time, I am looking at what factors limit teacher’s choices when selecting visual resources. While time, money and space come to mind right away I am also interested in teacher’s feelings about the influence of state and local standards like the NYC Blueprint for Teaching and Learning in Visual Arts.
Using surveys and interviews I also aim to learn how factors like the priorities of the administration and school culture effect teacher’s choices as well.
I hope to learn how best to articulate the choices teachers can make and possibly develop some ideas about best practice. I am also interested in learning how teachers deal with the limiting factors they encounter and how they achieve their goals regarding the display of visual materials.
