Grad Show 22

Katie Walck

My practice as a teaching artist focuses on creativity, exploration, and expanding students’ ideas of what art and design is. I believe art and design education allows students to create connections beyond the art room and start to see how creative problem-solving and investigation is at the root of so much of what we do as humans. While strong studio skills and attention to craft are a part of what I aim to teach, the emphasis is on flexible thinking and not being afraid to try new things. I aim to create a classroom environment that is oriented around perspective sharing and all-around inclusivity. As a quilter, I see a strong connection of quilting as a metaphor for the classroom; a gathering of material, each of us making up the many parts, and a place where we each come with our own different backgrounds but together create a cohesive whole.

Visual of a wall showing sixth grade lesson plan and artist examples

Place Based Pattern Painting

Lesson theme

2022

Sixth grade art lesson, working with the theme of environment, inspired by the art of Katherine Bernhardt

Visual of a wall showing seventh grade lesson plan and artist examples

Power of Words in Public Art

Lesson theme

2022

Seventh grade art lesson, working with the theme of power, specifically artists who use the power of words in public art

A repeat pattern painting showing rats, trash, and pizza

New York Alleyway Pattern

Oil pastel and watercolor

18x24"

2022

Student artwork, creating pattern based off a place. Thinking about how we can break down a location into symbolic images

In progress student artwork, fabric quilt block showing a person with big muscles, angel wings, and sound waves radiating off them

Do I Really Matter?

Fabric collage

12x12"

2022

Student artwork, fabric collage quilt block. Students create quilt blocks sharing a message about something they cared about.

Collaged magazine clippings of image and text paired together to create new or deeper meanings

Text and Image collage warmup

cut magazine, paper, and glue

8.5x11"

2022

Students paired images and text from newspaper & magazines to create new meaning or strong meaning when paired together

12 student artworks, in each artwork chose a shape and repeat it over and over again to obliterate their paper

Obliteration

Paint, crayons, markers, collage, stickers
12x12"
2022

An exercise with 1st and 2nd graders thinking about Yayoi Kusama and her Obliteration Room. How can we obliterate our paper?

A group of 1st graders art works laid out on a table.

My Eternal Soul, Yayoi Kusama inspired drawings

Paper, Marker, crayon
12x18"
2022

Students laid out their work at the end of the project to share what they drew. In the project they were to imagine their life under a microscope, a mix of germ-y amoebas and their favorite things hidden throughout.

Student work on table, shows process of planning, sketching, and creating.

Character design

Paper, Markers
8.5x11"
2022

Students worked on a multi-step art lesson combining narrative and collage. They started by working out their story on comic strips, sketched ideas, and created an alter-ego version of themselves. This student drew himself as a ninja.

Student artwork made using a mix of collage materials, shows a super hero moon figure standing in the center with ocean below them and outer space above them, trash is scattered throughout.

5th Grade Narrative Collage Project

Paper, Magazines, Tissue Paper, Crayons, Markers, Glue
12x12"
2022

Student created a super hero moon that can change the tides of the ocean and pull all the trash out of the water and into a black hole in outer space helping to stop pollution.

Image of student artwork. Student turned paper sideways to show a vase that has fallen over. The image shows a dog playing with a tennis ball.

4th Grade Modern Day Greek Vases

Paper, Crayon, Marker
12x18"
2022

Students created modern versions of Greek Amphora vases that depict stories from their own life. This student shows his dog playing ball, and a "broken" vase as the result