Ms. Foxen
The practice of art making not only sharpens our motor skills, but fine-tunes our ability to trust our own instincts. Art making gives space for critical thinking and problem-solving, experimentation and play. Often we are expected to rely too heavily on our verbal and written communication skills alone, but in art we practice a multi-sensory language that expands our vocabulary of expression. Ms. Foxen aims to provide her students with opportunities to discover their own creative practice through the exploration of a medium and research of artists who inspire them. When we connect with others, we connect to ourselves. Ms. Foxen's strength is assisting and encouraging students to speak through the mark of their own hand, to find and develop their own sensibility of composition and balance, a perspective maybe they can only bring. In this light, art allows us to celebrate and uncover our own unique identities. Students in Ms. Foxen's class will be given the chance to use various mediums and tools with the goal being to become comfortable using a new material as a means of expression. To learn the parameters of a medium is to endure and appreciate the difficulty of mastery. As an art teacher, Ms. Foxen believes it is her job to be a keen observer of her students so that she can jump when something excites them and gently push them up the hill of mastery. The culture of the art room is a welcoming space for all students to be themselves, so everyone can feel free to experiment, accept, reject, flip upside down, gain perspective, observe, analyze and find their way back to the natural urge to create.
