I love the collaborative process – letting everyone know that whatever idea comes to them is needed by the project. I take responsibility for the unity and beauty of the creative outcome. I am committed to project-based learning and arts integration – allowing multiple intelligences to be expressed while young people explore and test themselves in the world by creating real products. I believe that children and adults have a fundamental drive for mastery, autonomy, purpose and connection. These are the principles upon which I facilitate learning experiences.
A Message about the importance of Evolution, Trust and Inclusion to Educators
Here are some highlights of my work:
- Founder of Unity Through Creativity Foundation
- Founder of The Singing Tree Mural Project – Peace Building Through Art, Inspired by Nature. The whole world is invited to make a painting together!
- Thirty-five years of project-based learning, murals and dramas with mostly under-served children in public, private and Waldorf-inspired charter schools
- Educator Training in Meeting Standards using Project-Based Learning and Multiple Intelligences
- Soledad Middle School Public School Educators, CA
- Butte County Public School Educators, CA
- Uniontown Public Schools, PA
- Marin County Public Schools, CA
- Hearthstone Waldorf-inspired Parent Cooperative, Sperryville, VA
- Pittsburgh Public Schools, PA
- Using visual art and storytelling in consensus building, leadership training, conflict prevention and values clarification
- Government organizations – NASA, the Department of Interior, Army Corps of Engineers, UNICEF, U.S. Botanical Gardens, the U.S. Senate
- Social service agencies – Hospitals, Hospices, Prisons and Foster Homes
- Businesses – Developing Alliances with Extraordinary Women, Oracle, Global Innovation Summit, Creating WE Institute, Sustainable Enterprise Conference, Women’s Innovation Summit (Silicon Valley)
- Non-profit organizations – Bioneers, Pachamama Alliance, Biomimicry Institute,
- “Woman of the Year” in McKeesport, PA for facilitating murals designed and painted by foster teens for the family courts
- Curriculum writer for
- Institute of Noetic Sciences’ Worldview Exploration Program
- See the Change USA – Middle School Physics Program
- Let’s Create Peace – Peace Building Through Art
- Global Youth Exchange – International Youth Social Justice Program
- Biomimicry Institute – Nature–based Biology Program
- Art and Social Studies K-12 California Professional Certificate
- Community Matters community-matters.org Student-driven bully prevention program, which is part of the National Registry of Evidence Based Programs and Practices
- Conversational Intelligence, trained by Judith Glaser of Creating We Institute, http://www.creatingwe.com/
- Peace Ambassador Training by James O’Dea, former head of Amnesty International
- Biomimicry
- The Art of Hosting Conversation
- Faculty Member or Adjunct Professor
- Academy of Art, Creativity and Consciousness; Creativity with Children, Peace Building Through Art ; Laurelwood, OR and Assisi, Italy
- Dominican University; Project-Based Learning; San Rafael, CA
- Buck Institute of Education, Novato, CA
- Robert Morris University; Photography, Mythology and Communication; Pittsburgh, PA
- Waynesburg University, Drawing and Painting; Waynesburg, PA
- Lord Fairfax Community College, Warrenton, VA, Drawing and Art History
- Artist-in-Residence
- Marin School of the Arts, Novato, CA
- Marin Oaks High School, Novato, CA
- Art Grupa, Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovinia
- Pittsburgh Children’s Museum
- American Museum of Natural History, NYC
- Brooklyn Museum NYC
- Virginia Commission of the Arts