Sentinel boasts a strong and diverse fine arts community, with students creating all kinds of prints, drawing, sculptures, paintings, photographs, and all that art has to offer, in the faithful rooms of 151, 153A and 153C. Of course, none of this would be possible without Sentinel’s two AP Art teachers, Ms. Evans and Ms. Hambly. To learn more about our art teachers’ journeys, provide advice to young student-artists, and talk about art in general, I sat down with our two art teachers.
I sat down, set up my notes, and asked Ms. Hambly and Ms. Evans to introduce themselves. In the meanwhile, a student quickly said goodbye to us in the studio and left an empty classroom at the end of the day, usually full with a melange of students trying to finish their pieces. After an anharmonic sequence of our byes, our interviewees introduced themselves. Ms. Evans started:
“Hi, my name is Cecily Evans, and I teach senior photography and senior ceramics/sculpture, as well as AP 2-D and 3-D Art and Design.”
And so continued Ms. Hambly:
“I am Madelyn Hambly, and I teach Photography 9, Pre-AP Art 11, AP 2-D Art and Design, and AP Drawing.”
My first question, who is your favourite artist and what is your favourite genre of art, followed the introductions. Ms. Hambly and Ms. Evans were both, understandably, slightly taken aback. In hindsight, my question was a shallow one.
A point emphasized by both teachers was the interdisciplinary nature of art, and Ms. Hambly commented about the variety of art genres and artists that she appreciates, best summed up by the quote:
“I can’t just choose one!”
Ms. Evans went on to express her agreement, she further elaborated on one artist she found to have a profound impact on the art world, Marcel Duchamp:
“The one artist that I’m going to say that historically stands out for me in terms of pushing boundaries and allowing us to express ourselves through visual art is Duchamp. His work questioned long-held assumptions about what art should be, and how it should be made. His work paved the way for modern and contemporary art, and revolutionized the idea and definitions of art.”
Duchamp was a part of the Dadaist movement in the early 20th century, starting off as a Cubist and Futurist painter. However, after 1912, he mainly stopped with his painting work, and he put out his first “readymades” in 1913, a series of arts Duchamp made from prefabricated objects. One of his most popular works was Fountain, a urinal featuring the tag “R. Mutt 1917.”
Ms. Hambly also talked about Meret Oppenheim, another artist who challenged societal expectations and caused radical shifts in art. She mentioned Oppenheim’s Breakfast in Fur, a surrealist tea-set covered in fur inspired by Pablo Picasso’s comments during one of their meetings at a Parisian cafe in 1936.
Moving on to the next question, I asked what had led Ms. Evans and Ms. Hambly towards the arts, and whether they had taught any other subjects. In other words, I asked them about their teacher origin stories.
Ms. Evans started off. Excelling mainly in the arts in high school, she headed towards completing two undergrads, one in fine arts and one in psychology. Initially intending to go to Concordia to study art therapy, specifically the forensic end of it, a gap year intended to make money and practice French changed her plans. Her experience working at a school for students with high-spectrum autism made Ms. Evans realize something, she loves teaching! As Ms. Evans says:
“It was an eye-opener for me and it completely changed what my goals were. So, I switched gears, and decided to go and study art education at UBC. I got a job here at Sentinel right after graduation, and I have been teaching art as long as I’ve been here…for many years. I also taught AP Psychology for 12 years.”
As for Ms. Hambly, it all started with family:
“I was influenced and inspired by my family. I grew up with artists and musicians around me. I always looked forward to my art classes and creating.”
Ms. Hambly continued a post-secondary education in communication and graphic design. After graduating, she worked in marketing design, multimedia and useability design in the high-tech industry in Ottawa. Ms. Hambly recalls on her experiences while volunteering in Ottawa:
“During this time I started volunteering on weekends at the Ottawa School of Art with young children. I had a wonderful mentor, Annie VanKessel, who was such an inspirational teacher for me.”
After moving to British Columbia, she continued working in the design arena while finishing a Fine Arts degree at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. She then entered UBC to complete a Bachelor of Education. Her first employment as a teacher was at the Artists for Kids after-school program in North Vancouver at the Gordon Smith Art Gallery. After a year of also being a teacher teaching on call (TTOC), she arrived at Sentinel in the Visual Arts Department.
Seeing their experience with the fine arts, in addition to teaching art, I decided to ask them for a key piece of advice for young artists: how can students develop their art? To answer this very broad and hard-to-answer question, Ms. Evans began by underlining the importance of patience and time.
“No matter what it is you’re trying to learn, it requires on-going practice and engagement,” commented Ms. Evans. Explaining further, she elaborated on how this includes the exploration of various different mediums and ideas. Engagement with contemporary artists will also help your practice grow and help to push ideas beyond your comfort level. Ms. Evans believes that exploring topics through instruction and guided learning opportunities are just some of the ways to achieve this. As she explained, “Think about how you can go beyond your go-to composition and take risks.” Then Ms. Hambly interjected, “Take artistic risks and grow from your ‘mistakes.’”
Both suggest that working outside of your usual ideas and process through opportunity at Sentinel and beyond is essential to developing your art. Life-long and continual learning is another oft-mentioned idea. Ms. Evans provides an example:
“Draw everyday, but drawing everyday with structure and goals. Reflect upon your practice and push yourself to evolve.”
Ms. Hambly talks about how life-long learning applies to their own practices:
“And it’s also about life-long learning. The same thing applies to art, as other academic streams - We are continuously trying to grow our practice through research of contemporary artists and experimentation of mediums. Explore!”
From another perspective, Ms. Evans talks about how teaching has impacted her own practice:
“Working with students all with individual inquiries is exhausting, but also exciting! I am constantly reflecting and researching so I can help push students’ ideas to show growth and evolution of inquiry. It also helps me, in terms of my own practice and pushing myself beyond my comfort zone”
Seeing how teaching has impacted their own practices, I was intrigued by how Ms. Hambly and Ms. Evans were impacted by their teaching experience. This prompted my question, what about teaching do you enjoy the most?
Ms. Hambly cited students’ energy as one of favourite aspects:
“I have to say the energy of the students in itself makes us feel more energetic about our practice and what we can accomplish. When we have students in our environment that are excited to learn and create, then that makes us fulfilled.”
Seeing their students’ growth was another answer, as Ms. Hambly iterates:
“We also enjoy seeing students succeed, through their artistic growth. It might not be success in a way of huge achievements, but it can be incremental achievements that are great to see in a student. And then, of course, making connections that last years. We have students who have come back after graduation to tell us of their experiences in the field - creating art in all different types of disciplines. So, it’s exciting to see that we’ve been able to support that and continue the journey for them.”
Ms. Evans added on:
“The amount of diverse, super interesting careers that students have been able to niche out in this world through the arts - it’s just mind-boggling”
As the afternoon drew to a close and the few remaining students started to wipe their tables clean of eraser dust and spilled ink, I decided to wrap up the interview.
Seeing Ms. Hambly and Ms. Evans’ experience in teaching and the aspects they found to be enjoyable, I felt that asking for their most memorable moment in their schooling and teaching lives would be a fine way to end the interview.
Although there wasn’t one clear answer, I think that this quote from Ms. Evans sums up the memorable moments of any of our lives pretty well.
“Most of my memorable moments were the ones where I messed up, and I don’t think I want to admit to any of those things and have them publicized!”
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