Dr. Lisa Hochtritt
Professional organizations:
Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development (ASCD), Colorado Art Education Association (CAEA), International Society for Education through Art (InSEA), Kappa Delta Pi (International Honor Society in Education), The National Art Education Association (NAEA), and Special Interest Group Member: Caucus for Social Theory in Art Education (CSTAE).
What is your favorite thing about teaching at RMCAD?
I love teaching at RMCAD because of the small class sizes; you really get to know your students well and can help them individually in reaching their educational and artistic goals. I also really enjoy the beautiful RMCAD campus and the extraordinary faculty with whom I get to work.
What is your favorite class or project to teach and why?
I really enjoying teaching all of my students at RMCAD. I have particularly enjoyed my senior-level student teaching-related classes, as it is so rewarding to see them transition from students into teachers!
Knowing what you know now, what’s the one piece of advice you would give to your college-aged self?
Apply yourself totally and get plenty of rest! Take advantage of all that the college has to offer and propose new ideas and follow through with your dreams.
What prominent artist, scholar or designer in your field do you admire the most, and why?
I am inspired by my many of my former professors including Dr. Graeme Sullivan, Dr. Julia Marshall, Dr. Maxine Greene, Dr. Judith Burton, and Renee Darvin. I also admire all of my colleagues, past and current, and all of the students who I have had the pleasure to work with and learn from.
What are your greatest influences?
I love popular culture and the histories that are inherent in previously used items.
Artist/Teaching Statement:
I generally look around me for inspiration and try to remain cognizant of the potentiality of collaborating with those things in my immediate environment. The streets, popular culture, thrift stores, travel adventures, are all places I glean creative encouragement for exploration in my artwork and teaching. I am a collector and distributor of all sorts of things. I look at the materials I gather, and the chance encounters I have with others, as having a life of their own; as possessing a co-constructed history. Graeme Sullivan (2002) writes about me and my art practice in Gaudelius and Speirs’s book, Contemporary Issues in Art Education:
“Lisa Hochtritt is an artist who uses objects in ways that can’t be fully planned as new possibilities emerge during her public art collaborations. She talks about materials as having histories that may be partly known yet their future can only be inferred….she teaches us how the unpredictability of art practice can mirror the uncertainty of art teaching” (pp. 30-31).
In viewing the pedagogical process, my decision to discuss certain topics in class is affected by the participants in the process. It can be a spot of unease to admit that one does not hold all of the answers or professes to know the ending, but it’s these moments of co-authoring in the classroom and in the artmaking process that encourage my creative curiosity and motivate me to teach. It is this process of engaging with the materials (broadly defined) and the individuals in my environment that galvanize my democratized teaching, learning and artistic practices.
My enthusiasm for teaching and for those who participate in the process, my belief in the power of the arts to engage in visual culture and social critique, and my unwavering commitment to help my students meet their goals, all coalesce to form the foundation of my teaching philosophy. Whether it be bringing to students the awareness of critical pedagogy and contemporary artists in our multicultural world, theories as affected by practice in our visual culture, stressing the importance of collegiality, or providing a supportive learning community, what the participants take from the educational experience is ultimately an individualized plan. This potential and promise for collaborating on the construction of new stories, meanings and ideas continue to guide my pedagogical practices.
Reference:
Sullivan, G. (2002). Ideas and teaching: Making meaning from contemporary art. In Y. Gaudelius & P. Speirs (Eds.), Contemporary issues in art education (pp. 23-38). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.