Linda Helmick is an artist and a PhD candidate in art education at Indiana University. This show is the result of her dissertation research. She explored the practice of an art therapist and asked: What do art therapists do? How was this therapist’s practice like or different from the work of an art educator? Ultimately, this therapist and a graduate student in art education and art therapy collaborated with the artist to re-imagine a curriculum that interlaced art education and art therapy. These art works are a result of that blended curriculum. Some of the works were created by participants of the study who bravely made themselves vulnerable in their art making. Others are Linda's analysis of their experiences through encaustic visual portraiture.
The show can be viewed during regular museum hours (Tues.-Sat., 10am-2pm) in our Education Center, located next door in the barn building.
Artist's Statement: As an artist/researcher/teacher it matters to me that students recognize connections between the outside world, self, and classroom lessons. I began to develop a particular philosophy of empathy and care as a high school art teacher and now as an instructor in Indiana University’s art education program. I have worked and made art with children in homeless shelters, high school students in connection with adults who experience abuse, alcoholism, and homelessness, and adolescents who are waiting to be tried as adults in a county jail. I am grateful to have witnessed the experiences of these graduate students and educators as they participated in a curriculum that blurred existing borders, challenging the traditional art education curriculum to open space for something new.