In Praise of World-Builders: Artists create art; great art teachers create artists.

When we admire a beautiful painting, we often focus on the artist who created it.  What we don’t see are the countless individuals standing quietly in the background and the history of that artist: the mentor who explained color theory for the ten-thousandth time, the workshop leader who spent hours or even days preparing lesson plans long before students arrived, the instructor who anticipated every question before it was asked and solved every problem before it even happened and then found a dozen different ways to explain it until it finally clicked, and the encouraging elementary school art teacher who was there at every step.

Teaching art is its own art form.  The ability to create and the ability to guide others toward creation are entirely different skills that are often unceremoniously lumped together into the same skills wheelhouse, but an artist can be extraordinarily talented and skilled and still not have a clue how to teach doing it.  One skill is about making it--the other skill is about translating it; both are unique languages.  To be a good teacher requires patience, empathy, communication, intuition, and a solid understanding of how people learn.

The best art teachers perform a kind of magic.  Standing solidly at the intersection between artistic mastery and everyday life, they become living bridges between the world of professional artists and the person who has always wanted to paint but never believed they could.  Good teachers transform intimidation into curiosity, fear into confidence, and blank canvases into possibilities.  But this is not accomplished by waving a magic wand–there are untold hours of preparation, practice, planning, and testing techniques.  Every lesson or workshop takes into careful consideration how to break down a complex process into manageable steps–great teachers carry all of that work so that their students can simply show up, create, learn, and play–and the impact reaches far beyond the classroom or the workshop. 

Every time a student discovers a creative voice they didn’t know they had, a life changes.  Every time someone connects with wonder, curiosity, confidence, or joy through art, the world becomes a little richer, more saturated with bolder colors–one painting at a time, one workshop at a time, one retreat at a time, one student at a time. 

At House of Athena Creative Retreats, we believe these world-builder rock-star art teachers deserve exceptional recognition–that’s why we search for those rare individuals who are not only accomplished professional artists but gifted educators as well. So we sing the praises of these guides, encouragers, translators, and mentors–these keepers of creative knowledge and the champions of human potential.  At House of Athena Creative Retreats, we don’t just celebrate artists; we honor the teachers who awaken the artist in others.  We honor world-changers and world-builders.