Teaching art has been one of the most rewarding experiences I have had as an artist. I love inviting people in to learn and grow their creativity and self expression. Art helps people build self confidence, I learned this while working with youth at Cypress School in Petaluma, CA. There I worked as a teacher’s aide/ communication partner for students with developmental disabilities. The students and staff at Cypress taught me so much about classroom management, patience, and making art accessible to all skill levels. I was able to teach art and cooking to the students at Cypress one day a week. Working with everyone’s mobility and cognitive abilities, I was able to guide the students through various arts and crafts projects, from painting, to hand building with air dry clay, to DIY STEM projects.
After my time at Cypress School, I moved on to teaching plant art at Succulence, a plant store located in San Francisco, CA. There I was able to learn the beauty of plant art, something I hadn’t had much experience with before. I learned vertical gardens, terrariums, moss walls, kokedamas, and more. The power of plants is undeniable, just being around them brings people peace and as my former boss and teacher would say, “getting your hands in the soil is a natural antidepressant.” While teaching at Succulence, I primarily worked with adults, and occasionally youth. From working with adults I learned a lot more about how to inspire creativity in others. It is so easy to go a lifetime without engaging in art, especially in the capitalistic world we live in, work takes up so much of our time. Many of my students were “not artists” or “don’t have a creative bone in their body,” with encouragement and creating a safe and inviting space for people to try something out of their comfort zone; they were all able to make some beautiful plant art.