Portrait of the Artist/Educator identity

This research analyzes the diversity of aspects and contexts in which pedagogy affects creative processes in visual artists who are also educators. The assumption underlying this study is that all artists want to be good artists and all teachers want to be good teachers. In order to understand the relationship between pedagogy and art making through the artist/educator, a methodology of portraiture (Lawrence-Lightfoot, 1997) will enable the illumination of real people in real settings through the ‘painting’ of their stories as well as put an emphasis on the voice of the researcher. Each portrait will require the researcher to constantly reflect on the participants’ experiences by incorporating ethnographic observations, interview responses, impressionistic records, the interpretation of context, and the researcher’s experiences and insights. As part of a concern voiced by several artists interviewed in a study of artist/teacher identity, the researcher found that this group lacked specific professional training in the area of educational practice as well as showed a hybridized identity that leaned toward being one over the other instead of both. Additionally, teaching artists have few resources that provide information and advocate or support engagement with the arts in a form of a community of practice to expand knowledge and opportunities. This study will utilize some of the hallmarks of the portraiture method, one of which is to portray success and positivity, and will point to the relationship this approach may have with contemporary research in Education and in the Arts