AEV Vice President, Kathryn Coleman and Councillor, Tahlia Jolly will facilitate this panel presentation with selected exhibiting TAP2016 artist teachers and Melbourne based art educators. The panel discussion will focus on the benefits of creative practice to teaching and learning, struggles of sustained practice, and strategies for developing simultaneous identities.
Panel speakers will be artist teacher/educators:
Craig Frankland graduated with a Master of Teaching (Secondary Art) from the University of Melbourne (2012) and obtained a Bachelor of Graphic Design (Honours) from Monash University (2001). Craig has worked on a range of commercial design projects including furniture design, exhibition design, branding, type design, advertising, illustration and website design. Craig is a practising artist, designer and full time teacher of Design Technologies at Sunbury Downs College.
Vanja Radisic is an Australian – Bosnian artist, educator and author. She holds Master of Teaching (by Research) from Melbourne University (2009) and a Bachelor of Fine Art from RMIT (2005). Prior to her role as a Public and Academic Programs Officer at the Deakin University Art Gallery, she was a Photography Coordinator at Melbourne High School. In 2015, following a year of travelling, photographing and writing her way around Europe, Vanja published “iPad for Photography Students: Project Based Approach”, a best-selling ebook on iBooks Store. She dreams of becoming a hermit and retiring with her art and books somewhere far, far away (preferably in Northern Queensland).
Lis Johnson has practiced as a professional sculptor for over 25 years, specialising in figuration. Lis has a Bachelor of Arts (1983), Bachelor of Creative Arts (1986), Graduate Certificate of Arts - English Literature (2009). She taught Sculpture part-time at College of Fine Arts UNSW 1987-1991, before becoming a full-time practising artist. After completing the Master of Teaching - Secondary, Visual Art and English (2014) she taught Visual Art and Technology at The University High School in 2011-2012. She has since been busy with commissioned sculpture work and has not taught for the past few years. Lis has just completed a large scale bronze portrait of an Australian sporting champion, and is working on her fifth statue for the MCG; both will be unveiled in early 2017.
Michele Stockley is the Senior Educator at the National Gallery of Victoria. After completing a Bachelor of Education and teaching visual arts in a secondary school for several years, Michele began a career in gallery education which has now spanned several decades, and has involved her working in educator roles at Monash University Museum of Art and the National Gallery of Victoria, and on project work for numerous other public galleries. Michele is also the author of two secondary school visual arts texts Art Detective and Art Investigator.
Cat Poljski is the current Head of Faculty at MGS and completed her MFA in Fine Arts at Monash University. She exhibits regularly both nationally and internationally and has been on residencies in Beijing, New York and Munich. She runs a studio with ten other artists in East Brunswick and has been a practicing artist since she completed her undergraduate. She was recently involved in a project that involved navigating Melbourne titled, 37°48’S Artists Navigate Melbourne, which was exhibited at the 2014 New York Print Fair, the Sofitel in Melbourne and is now travelling to São Paulo in Brazil. She loves what she does and will continue to make art.
The Teacher as Artmaker Project (TAP) is a significant research initiative conducted initially at the Melbourne Graduate School of Education (MGSE).