The Leap
Class was ending when one of my 5th grade general art students asked, “Is it true that you’re leaving?”
I took a breath before answering him, “Yes, it’s true.”
“Why?”
They were all looking at me now, seventeen 5th graders who, only moments ago, were rowdily dancing to our clean up jam (1985 billboard sizzler, Conga, by the Miami Sound Machine, in case you are wondering); now they had fallen alarmingly quiet and still.
I began running the calculations that we all do as educators when faced with an unexpected and ill-timed question: what do I need to do to protect their feelings and mine? x how will I answer simply and honestly even though the emotion they’ve inspired is complex? ÷ how much time do I have? (in this case, approximately 35 seconds until the bell)…
After 15 years in education, I stepped back from full time classroom teaching at the end of the 2024-2025 school year to devote my professional focus to my art practice.
Teaching general art has made me a better person, a better artist, and has introduced me to some of my closest friends while giving me a rich way to connect with others. Every year without exception has been generative, humbling, hilarious, tearful, affirming— and has unapologetically taken my understanding of what it means to be human and blown it wide open.
Teaching has irrevocably changed and deepened my art practice; in a way, the métier has even nourished this very personal homecoming.
As I begin to pour wild and unapologetic energy into a childhood dream, I am excited to honor my roots in illustration and creative writing, to revisit design for live theater, to carve out time for healthy studio exploration, and to pursue public and private commissions. I suspect that teaching won’t suddenly evaporate from my life, but it is sure to look radically different…
It’s been an honor to serve at schools doing such empathic, forward-thinking work as the Gordon School, the Wolf School, and the Learning Community through their former partnership with Providence City Arts for Youth.
Just for fun, I tried to count how many general art students I’ve had in the state of Rhode Island since 2010 and lost track after 1,000. To my Gordon families, and to any of my Wolf and Learning Community families who happen upon this; from the bottom of my heart, thank you for the opportunity to teach your children.
So… “Why?” he asked.
What’s the lesson? I asked myself.
“It was a difficult decision but the answer has to do with making more art.”
There was a pause, he nodded thoughtfully, “…for the greater good?” My spontaneous interviewer is 11 years old going on 45.
I can only hope that moving on to pursue my own artwork is as useful a parting lesson to my art students as any— that you can love your community and be proud of your service and still choose to pursue a dream and see what happens. Especially when the dream is loud and clear and calling from deep down inside of you. Hopefully paying attention to that calling, in and of itself, is an act for the greater good.
Gordon Class of 2028, I will always be grateful to you for holding me in this moment and every moment we shared until the end of the school year.
Images courtesy of my colleagues, Rebecca Garfield and Mimi Roterman: Class of 2028 students discovering my artwork at Providence Public Library, a synchronistic consequence of their Spring 2025 Humanities field trip to engage learning about accessibility design.