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Deborah Garcia attended Fordham University where she majored in fine art and minored in world history, graduating with a BFA. After graduation, she taught at St. Catharine Academy for four years before taking time off to raise her three children. Ms. Garcia came back to work in 2015 as the new art teacher at Sacred Heart High School.
"For me, a successful classroom is one where the students are tapping into their unique creative vision and learning to enjoy the variety of processes for creating art," says Ms. Garcia. "The most endearing thing for me at Sacred Heart HS is that true cliques do not exist. One student can be a jock and an artist and an intellectual and so many other things all at once. The students do not exclude each other based on interests, but rather welcome each other's differences openly."
SHHS sophmores are working on paintings inspired by Piet Mondrian. This is a colorful and satisfying project that incorporates art history into their lessons. Before beginning their paintings, Ms. Garcia led the class in a discussion on photorealism, cubism, the emotional attachments associated with color, and the psychological interpretation of lines in art, specifically diagonal lines. Intent on creating pieces that are as devoid of emotion as possible, the students began their projects by plotting cubes and squares, and then used only the colors red, blue, yellow, black and white to fill in. The results are unique, varied and interesting:
Ms. Garcia is an artist and educator at heart. "When I'm not at SHHS I spend my time with my husband and three children, Bethany (10), Joseph (8), and Isabella (6). When I find a spare minute, I'm sketching in one of my many sketchbooks to practice my techniques, scouring the internet for up and coming artists and new art trends, or creating project examples for my classes of the pieces that we'll be working on in upcoming classes."
The "Home" projects completed by SHHS juniors and seniors took old/found wooden boards as a symbol of the building supplies used to build a house. The students manipulated the boards into a form of scrapbooking image portraying what 'home' means to them. This process helped them demonstrate the connections and differences between what makes a "house" and what makes a "home". To begin, they sanded the wooden boards to give them a rough texture that would hold paint well but would also add texture and a worn aesthetic. Next they painted the boards with any colors/imagery/pattern etc. of their choosing. Then they took printed images of their actual homes and added textured paint and sanded the edges to make the images look worn as well. Finally they glued the images to the boards, painted on quotes about what "home" is, and added final detailing (extra sanding/ gloss coats/etc) to ensure that the pieces looked cohesive.
Fun Fact: Ms. Garcia's all time favorite snack is Charleston chews minis!
Thank you for us inviting us into your classroom, Ms. Garcia!
