The West Virginia Art Education Association will get a warm Mountaineer welcome when it holds its annual meeting at the Art Museum at West Virginia University October 30 and 31. This year’s theme will be “Cultivate. Create. Change! The Future of Visual Arts in West Virginia.”
WVU’s School of Art and Design will host the gathering of educators dedicated to promoting the arts as an essential component of education. The hosts will take advantage of the recently opened Art Museum of WVU and the College of Creative Arts overall as resources for the visiting educators, and a wide range of hands-on sessions are planned.
Workshop topics include visual journaling, centerpiece sculpture, using tablets in the classroom, contemporary comics, and encaustic painting. Other sessions will address art history, art-making activities for the K-12 classroom, and developing electronic portfolios.
“As the theme of the conference implies, technology and design are advancing in a multitude of ways, providing new opportunities that demand to be explored,” said Alison Helm, chair of WVU’s School of Art and Design. “It’s up to all of us to nurture and develop the next generation of creative leaders who will take art forward.”
The meeting begins on Friday morning, Oct. 30, with a keynote panel discussion featuring Ray Lowther of the West Virginia Department of Education, Peter Geisser of the National Art Education Association, Sam Brunett of Morgantown High School, and Joe Semple of Tyler Consolidated High School.
The panel will discuss “The Future of the Visual Arts in West Virginia,” with the assistance of some futuristic technology courtesy of remesh. The remesh system gathers audience feedback through a mobile application and projects it onto a screen behind the speakers, providing new opportunities for audience engagement. Remesh is providing the technology.
Breakout and networking sessions begin Friday and run through lunch on Saturday. All sessions will be held at the Art Museum of WVU and in the Creative Arts Center.
For more information on the meeting, contact Dr. Terese Giobbia, coordinator of art education at WVU, at 304-293-2393 or TEGiobbia@mail.wvu.edu. To register, please visit http://www.wvaea.com.
-WVU-
dw/09/02/15
CONTACT: Dr. Teresa Giobbia, WVU College of Creative Arts
304-293-2393; TEGiobbia@mail.wvu.edu
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