Confluence 2024: The Intersection of Teaching and Creating Art
They say that those who can’t do, teach, but at Millbrook, those who teach art also do it. As working artists, teachers in the art department model success for their students, bringing an ever-evolving skill set into the classroom.
“Through that continual learning of art and pushing of our own practice, we constantly find new inspiration to bring back to the kids,” said Kiernan Pazdar, who curates all Warner Gallery shows and teaches art at Millbrook while maintaining her professional practice as an oil painter. “We’re able to communicate that there are ways to be an artist and be an adult.”
This year’s iteration of the annual faculty art show, Confluence, filled the Warner Gallery at the Holbrook Arts Center with technically proficient experimentations in each teacher’s medium that showcase the practicing-artist side of our faculty.
Highlights of the show included a series of portraits marking the Warner Gallery debut of photography teacher Jeff Zelevansky. Kat Miller, a teacher in the English department, added some interdisciplinary flavor with a painting on aluminum, while ceramics instructor Tyler Gundrum featured work he did in New York City as part of a summer professional development opportunity sponsored by Millbrook.
Gundrum said that his perspective of the duality of teaching and doing art has evolved throughout his experience.
“At first, I tried to find a balance between teaching and creating art by separating the two,” he explained. “But the more I work with students and continue to make my own work, the more I realize that the two are intertwined. That intrinsic connection has taught me a lot about myself as an educator and artist because teaching and making aren’t all that different.”
That abstract insight from Gundrum was concretely demonstrated by Sarah MacWright in Confluence. She taught herself paper marbling over the summer, per Pazdar, exhibiting striking photographs of the results.
Bold paintings by Pazdar and Art Department Chair Joe Raciti also graced the walls of Warner Gallery, providing a wealth of inspiration for their students—whose turn to exhibit will come later in the school year.
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