For newer students, could you introduce yourself?
Sure. My name is Ms. Jackson. I teach Ceramics, Painting, Fine Arts, Foundations, and Drawing & Painting at Medway High School. I’ve been here for about 13 years, which is wild. And I taught a lot of kids when they were in elementary school. I love teaching all different levels. But yeah, I really enjoy high school.

What made you make the shift from elementary to high school?
I always wanted to teach high school art, but I kinda fell into elementary school. For art education, you’re certified in K – 12. My teachers thought I would go into, or fit well, with elementary. But I liked the meaning that’s elicited in high school work. That’s what drew me to high school.

Have you always wanted to be an art teacher, or did you go to college for something else?
Yes. I have wanted to be an art teacher since high school. I always wanted to teach. When I fell in love with art, then I knew that that’s what I wanted to do for teaching. And so I did.
I got my degree in Art Ed from UMass Amherst. You start with all the other foundation students at UMass. You do a year of foundations of drawing and painting. Then, you work through the Art Ed curriculum and dabble in all different things. I was accepted into the Painting program, but I wanted to make sure I had lots of options, just in case. But yeah, I ended up going into Art Ed and then ended with student teaching and stuff like that. And then I got my Master’s in Fine Art because I wanted to just focus on the art portion of things now that I had my undergrad in education.

You have a unique career path In Art Ed, which is more secure than most other jobs in art. Seeing your former students, do you think art school is worth it for people who aren’t going to go into teaching?
That’s complicated. For me, I am not a risk taker, l wanted something that I could fall back on because I wasn’t more into graphic design or the design aspect of art. I think it is super secure if you are geared towards that end of the spectrum.
You mean industry-based art careers?
Yeah. If you go into design or architecture or one of the things where you’re using art as a mode for someone who’s hiring you for something. But there’s definitely people who— I had a show with somebody who was a muralist painter, and she makes her living as an artist. I think it’s just riskier. So it depends on— Or not riskier, but for me, that was too risky. And I wanted to do education anyway, so it fit. But yeah, I think if you’re going into just art, I don’t have enough experience or knowledge in that field to know. But I think, yeah, it’s a little bit less secure. I would think.

Thank you. With recent AI developments, do you think there will still be a market for artists?
I think there is something about working with a client, the back and forth. I know from experience with my sister, who’s a graphic designer and worked at different magazines, that there’s really this conversational and relationship piece to industries like that, I think, can’t be replicated. Maybe I’m old school in that thinking, but there’s a lot of back and forth that goes into having a client’s design realized. It’s hard to duplicate that with AI.

Great points. Now, I’d like to reel back a bit. As an art teacher, what do you think it takes to become an artist?
You know my little quote that’s on the board? “Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once we grow up.” That’s from Picasso. With that said, I think some things differentiate an artist. One is work ethic and ability to keep persisting, because I do know many artists who stop halfway through something or don’t complete it. I think that is a big part of success in general, to be able to persist and complete. Another thing I’ve seen in artists is really thinking outside the box and thinking differently than other people. That’s where it differentiates from AI, too. Who can really come up with a unique idea and think differently? I also think it’s about who wants to express themselves. That’s with art, music, everything. These things have always reflected this need to express and reflect what we’re going through. So I think even if you don’t necessarily have the skills, you still have that artist mentality of self-expression.

Well said. Could we see some of your art at some point? 

Sure. Yeah. I could send you my thesis, too— My thesis presentation.

In grad school, they push you into all these extremes. It was a great experience. In my grad program— I went to Lesley— you work with a mentor, a working artist, and then you also work with an advisor throughout the whole semester. You meet with them monthly, and they look at all the work you’re making. You work 20 hours a week at the program that I went to. It was just a great experience to really push yourself on what your vision is and what you are trying to comment on, and successfully translating it to the viewer. My work was really focusing on feminist art history. That was my interest. What have other feminists made before me, and what were they commenting on, and how can my work have context within that? But then also, my work focused on the media, and I’ve always had an interest in sociology and psychology, and how people are the way they are and why. And so my work reflected on how women are influenced in a certain way by the media, but also by these norms that are passed down.
So, yeah, I’d love to send it to you. It can be a little racy. I feel like, especially for my thesis, they really pushed you outside the bounds. So some of it was an edgy or sexualized image, which really has to do with how women are represented in the media and things. But, yeah. So I always show some more of my tame work to my students just because I don’t want it to make anyone uncomfortable as a student, obviously. But yeah, I mean, just the way women are depicted, you don’t have to watch an X-rated film to know that there are some uncomfortable ways that women are presented in our culture. So yeah, definitely. I would definitely show you some stuff.

>See Ms. Jackson’s site for more work

You mentioned feminist artists. Do you have any huge inspirations? Anyone you’d recommend looking into?
Definitely. So, Wangechi Mutu is a collage artist, and she focuses more on how black women are represented in the media. She is an awesome collage artist who really helped inform my work. Also Cindy Sherman. So she was a photographer that investigated how women were represented. Another artist, Eleanor Antin. She did different feminist ideas in her work that I also pulled from. And then Lauren Greenfield. She’s also a photographer who takes on a sociology standpoint in her work, which was interesting for me, too.

Thank you. One more topic I want to talk about. Does the Medway Art Department receive enough funding? Is there anywhere where it’s stopped short?
We’ve never really been told no about purchasing something. We have a good fund that we can draw from, and we get to propose what we need, but, with that being said, I think there are definitely limitations. But my perspective is more on how the arts aren’t as supported in general as a district. Both elementary positions have been cut to part time. When I taught, they were full time. I saw kids twice a week, and when you compare that if they’re getting science twice a week or they’re getting English every single day how important is the arts if they’re not really considered into that kind of scheduling? And how for some kids that can really influence them or get them through the day, get them through the week to be able to engage in art making. And also just like most schools, professional development is really more geared towards science, math, English, and not really to the arts. So we have to really, kind of push ourselves to get funding and, and kind of the things that we need. You know? We don’t have a department head, so we don’t have certain things that most other specialties do. With that being said, Dr Murray really appreciates the arts and is always very supportive. He’s never said no to something. You know, he wants to support us as best he can.

Is there anything else you’d like to talk about? Anything you’d like to promote?
I don’t think so. It was nice to just talk about all of these ideas and talk about grad school and bring up all the fun things again. So I appreciate it, Sasha.