OSAI 2025 SELECTIONS

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2024 Faculty

Designed for Educators

Paddy Bowman, Instructor

Charlottesville, Virginia

Paddy Bowman is Founding Director of Local Learning: The National Network for Folk Arts in Education, celebrating its 30th anniversary. She is co-editor of the Journal of Folklore and Education, a peer-reviewed, multimedia, open-access publication of Local Learning. Her courses and professional development training programs for educators and artists, implementation of model school-based projects, authorship of seminal publications, and development of online and offline curricular materials have significantly extended the reach of folklore and folk arts to hundreds of teachers and their students throughout the United States. She co-edited the anthology Through the Schoolhouse Door: Folklore, Community, Curriculum (Utah State University Press) and was awarded the American Folklore Society’s Benjamin A. Botkin Prize for Lifetime Achievement in Public Folklore and is a Fellow of the American Folklore Society. She has an M.A. in folklore from the University of North Carolina. 

WORKSHOP Integrating Folk Arts and Local Culture Across the Curriculum

Roberta A. Lucas, Instructor

Roberta "Bobbi" Lucas is a Detroit-based teaching artist, somatic psychologist, and expressive arts practitioner. She is a National Master Teaching Artist for the Wolf Trap Institute for Early Childhood Education. Over the past 25 years Lucas has conducted classroom residencies, teacher professional development workshops and teaching artist trainings. She has represented the Institute in the U.S., Canada, England and Greece. As special lecturer at Oakland University, she taught dancers and education majors till 2022. Lucas is a 1998  recipient of the O.U. Alumni Arts Achievement Award for “outstanding contributions to children’s dance.” Lucas is a 2016 graduate of the Tamalpa Institute (Kentfield, CA) at the Mountain Home studio of Anna Halprin. In 2020 she was selected for the Inaugural Jacob’s Pillow Curriculum in Motion, Training Institute. In 2023 Lucas returned to The Pillow as a CIM® teaching fellow. “Arts integration in education, healing, nature and living is my passion.”

WORKSHOP Nature’s Choreography: Finding Wonder in Dance Education

Writing

Constance Squires, Instructor

Edmond, Oklahoma

Constance Squires, Ph.D. is a novelist, short story writer, and essayist who teaches fiction at the University of Central Oklahoma. She is the author of three novels and a short story collection, including her latest novel, Low April Sun, which centers on the Oklahoma City bombing and will be published in February 2025. Her other titles include Along the Watchtower, Live from Medicine Park, and Hit Your Brights. Winner of the Oklahoma Book Award and of numerous other literary prizes, Squires has published short fiction and essays in Guernica, The Atlantic, Shenandoah, the New York Times, the Rolling Stone 500, Dublin Quarterly, and numerous other journals and magazines. She has one daughter, six cats, three dogs, and a lizard.

constancesquiresofficial.com

WORKSHOP Structural Fiction Writing

Music

Kofi Gbolonyo, Instructor

Vancouver, British Columbia

Dr. Kofi Gbolonyo is an ethnomusicologist and a specialist in Orff-Schulwerk and multicultural music education. He has over 30 years of experience teaching children and adults of all ages at different levels of education in many different countries and continents. Kofi is an internationally recognized clinician, music educator, performer, and scholar. He is currently a professor in Music and African Studies and the founder and director of the African Music and Dance Ensemble at the University of British Columbia in Vancouver; an instructor in the Capilano University’s Jazz Studies Program in North Vancouver; the founder and director of Nunya Music Academy, Ghana; and the Orff-Afrique Annual Summer Courses in Ghana. 

WORKSHOP West African Music, Dance, and Children’s Games

Julie Yu, Instructor

Edmond, Oklahoma

Dr. Julie Yu (She/Her/Hers) is Director of Choral Studies at the Wanda L. Bass School of Music at Oklahoma City University and the Artistic Director of Canterbury Voices, Oklahoma’s premier symphony chorus. She holds a Bachelor of Music degree in Music Education from the University of Central Oklahoma, a Master of Music degree in Choral Conducting from Oklahoma State University, and a Doctor of Musical Arts degree in Choral Conducting from the University of North Texas. Before joining OCU and Canterbury Voices, she taught at Norman North High School in Oklahoma, San José State University, and Kansas State University.

WORKSHOP Planning and Executing the Choral Vacation

Visual Arts

Joe Baker, Instructor

New York, New York

Joe Baker is an artist, educator, curator and culture bearer who has been working in the field of Native Arts for the past forty years. He is an enrolled member of the Delaware Tribe of Indians of Oklahoma and co-founder & executive director of Lenape Center in Manhattan. Baker is an adjunct professor at Columbia University’s Mailman’s School of Public Health in New York. He serves as a cultural advisor for the new CBS Series, “Ghosts.” Baker was appointed to the board of New York Foundation for the Arts. Baker graduated from the University of Tulsa with a BFA degree in Design and an MFA in painting and drawing, and completed postgraduate study, Harvard University, Graduate School of Education, MDP Program. His work is included in the permanent collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and numerous other museums and collections in the US and Canada, including the American Museum of Art and Design.   

WORKSHOP Intro to Native American Beadwork

Victor Caballero, Instructor

Norman, Oklahoma

Victor David Caballero is an Oklahoma native and an independent award-winning screenwriter, producer, and director. In his 20 years in the film and TV industry, Caballero has spent time both in front and behind the camera. He has modeled in various print campaigns and acted in multiple commercials and films, such as Stillwater, God’s Not Dead: We The People, & Lifetime’s Malicious Motives. Caballero was also a reporter for Oklahoma's inaugural live Spanish news team, T30 Noticias. In addition to filmmaking, one of his greatest passions is teaching students the art of cinema. Caballero co-founded the OKCine Latino Film Institute in 2017, where he provides hands-on filmmaking experiences and opportunities for local high school students. Currently, as the Director of Education + Outreach at deadCenter Film, he is dedicated to inspiring and empowering the next generation of filmmakers through the Statewide Education Tour and deadCenter University.

deadcenterfilm.org

WORKSHOP Filmmaking: A Foundation for Learning

Bryan Cardinale-Powell, Instructor

Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

Bryan Cardinale-Powell is a teacher, filmmaker, and photographer. His professional experience includes working at Panavision-Chicago and as a freelance producer, writer, editor, and cameraperson based out of Atlanta where he won a Southeast Region Emmy Award. He is currently Associate Professor and Chair of Film at Oklahoma City University. His film interests include American independent cinema and personal documentary, and his writing is included in *Devised and Directed by Mike Leigh*, a collection of essays on the British director’s work.

Instagram: @cardinale_powell

WORKSHOP Filmmaking: A Foundation for Learning

Michael Elizondo Jr., Instructor

El Reno, Oklahoma

A native of Oklahoma, Michael Elizondo Jr. received his B.F.A. from Oklahoma Baptist University (2008) and his M.F.A. at the University of Oklahoma (2011). Elizondo has participated numerous solo and group exhibits regionally and nationally. Elizondo has been a professor of fine art and art history at colleges and universities statewide, recently serving as the Director of the School of Art at Bacone College and Executive Director of Language and Culture with the Cheyenne and Arapaho Tribes. Elizondo is current devoting to his studio practices full-time.

WORKSHOP Acrylic Abstractions

Chris Hall, Instructor

Boston, Massachusetts

Christopher Hall, Ph.D., is an inclusive art educator for Boston Public Schools specializing in adapting arts-based curriculum and classroom pedagogy to create an environment where all of his students can be successful. For the past fourteen years he has gained extensive experience working with students with high support needs, ages three through sixteen, and is known for creating a learning environment that sets students up for success by removing barriers to creative expression. Hall has presented his work on neurodiversity, disability as human variability, and creating an “individualized artist success plan” at the state, national, and international level, and collaborated with the Guggenheim Museum in creating a toolbox to support museum educators in making museums accessible to all visitors. Hall was the recipient of the 2021 Massachusetts Art Education Association’s Special Needs Educator of the Year Award and the 2023 American Educational Research Association Disability Studies Outstanding Dissertation Award.

Instagram: @sensoryarts

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WORKSHOP Practical Strategies for the Inclusive Art Room

Mark Edward Harris, Instructor

Los Angeles, California

Assignments have taken Mark Edward Harris to more than 100 countries on all seven continents. His editorial work has appeared in publications such as Vanity Fair, LIFE, The New York Times, The Washington Post, Time Magazine, GEO, Newsweek, National Geographic Traveler, Vogue, Architectural Digest, The Los Angeles Times Magazine, and The London Sunday Times Travel Magazine as well as all the major photography and in-flight magazines. Among his numerous accolades are CLIO, ACE, Impact DOCS Award of Excellence, Aurora Gold, New York Book Show Book of the Year and IPA awards. His books include Faces of the Twentieth Century: Master Photographers and Their Work, The Way of the Japanese Bath, Wanderlust, North Korea, South Korea, Inside Iran, The Travel Photo Essay: Describing A Journey Through Images and his latest, The People of the Forest, a book about orangutans.

Instagram: @markedwardharrisphoto

WORKSHOP The Photo Essay: Telling a Story Through Images

Jan Heaton, Instructor

Oakwood, Ohio

Jan Heaton's art quietly unravels a story that creates an emotional connection with the viewer and reminds us of a feeling, place, or time. A quest for the natural beauty that surrounds us, her paintings are inspired by the structure, color, and patterns in nature. Working in watercolor, her organic forms integrate with the texture of the heavy cotton paper. The marks, pigment selections, and translucent layers are precise, thoughtful, and carefully planned. Born in Detroit, Michigan, Heaton is a third-generation artist. Her artwork is represented by galleries and art dealers in Austin, San Antonio, San Francisco, and Atlanta. 

janheaton.com

WORKSHOP Watercolor: Abstractions in Nature

David Modler, Instructor

Washington, D.C.

David R. Modler is a maker, scholar and professor originally from Baltimore, Maryland. He earned his Bachelor of Science and Master of Education in Art Education from Towson State University and his Master of Fine Arts in painting from James Madison University. His work is rooted in social practice structures, community engagement, and exploring collaborative systems. Modler currently serves as a Professor of Art and the Chair of the Department of Contemporary Art, Communication, and Theater at Shepherd University in Shepherdstown, West Virginia.

Instagram: @drmodler

WORKSHOP Experimental Approaches to Observational Drawing

Taylor Painter-Wolfe, Instructor

Tulsa, Oklahoma

Taylor Painter-Wolfe is a fiber artist and art teacher from Tulsa, Oklahoma. She majored in fiber art at The Kansas City Art Institute where she first began working with felted wool. She graduated with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in 2003 and later attended The University of Washington where she earned a Masters of Education in early childhood special education. In 2011 she returned to Tulsa where she has taught special education, preschool, and art in Tulsa Public Schools. Painter-Wolfe now divides her time between making and showing her work and teaching art classes to children and adults in various galleries, arts organizations, and schools throughout Oklahoma. She creates abstract landscapes from felted wool she makes and dyes herself. Her work is inspired by aerial photographs, satellite images, and her own photography of natural environments. She has had multiple solo shows in Tulsa and her work regularly appears in group shows locally and nationally.

taylorpainterwolfe.com

WORKSHOP Felted Wool

Jeanine Coupe Ryding, Instructor

Evanston, Illinois

Jeanine Coupe Ryding's work is in museum and private collections in the U.S, Europe, Japan and South Africa. Her work focuses primarily on woodcut prints, etchings, artist’s books, collage and painting. She founded both Shadow Press and Press 928 in Evanston, Illinois for fine art printing and publishing. She received her B.A. degree from The University of Iowa and her M.F.A. from the Universitat der Kunste, in Berlin, Germany. Ryding has received awards and residencies including Illinois Arts Council award, Arts Midwest Award and residencies in the U.S. and Europe. She taught in the PrintMedia Department of the School of the Art Institute of Chicago from 1991 to 2019 and now continues her work in her studio in Evanston, Illinois.

jeaninecouperyding.com

WORKSHOP Woodcut Print and Stencil

Art Werger, Instructor

Athens, Ohio

Art Werger grew up in the suburbs of New York where he developed a passion for drawing at an early age. After studying illustration and painting at the Rhode Island School of Design, he switched into the field of printmaking recieving his B.F.A. in printmaking. Werger continued studying printmaking at the University of Wisconsin where he received his M.F.A. in 1982. Over the last thirty years, he has focused on etching, aquatint and mezzotint and has become an internationally renowned artist in those media having received over 250 awards in national and international exhibitions. As a master printmaker, he works with aquatint, etching and mezzotint, with some of his images printed in multi-plate colors. Recently retired, Art Werger was a Professor of Art in the Printmaking program at Ohio University where he was named a Presidential Research Scholar. 

artwerger.com

WORKSHOP The Magic of Monotype
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