SCOTT NELSON FOSTER

541 BOULEVARD NO. 4 LOGAN UTAH 84321 435-720-3711 S.N.FOSTER@AGGIEMAIL.USU.EDU

Teaching Philosophy
An education in any artistic pursuit is grounded in perception, technique, and communication. As an educator, it is my goal to facilitate the greater unification of a students artistic intention, their technical abilities, and their mode of communication. It is also my desire to make art relevant to students from a wide variety of backgrounds. To accomplish these goals I teach my students the historical and contemporary significance of a wide variety of media as well as the technical use of these materials. I also allow students to understand to role and practice of art within a variety of societies. Students begin to learn in my classes by observing the world around them. Through an understanding of their subject in terms of fundamentals such as line, shape, and value, students are able to translate their perceptions of reality into various art media. In class we also observe other works of art through digital presentations. I also rely on high resolution images of works of art, accessed through online databases like artstor.org to allow my students to see how materials are used to compose an image. Besides teaching painting, drawing, and figure painting on the Main Campus of Utah State University, I have also taught general art courses, such as drawing and an art appreciation/art history through the distance education program at a satellite campus. This has given me the opportunity to work with single moms, returning students, and students from a variety of ethnic backgrounds. In this environment I have been able to draw on the variety of life experiences that my students have had to enrich our learning environment. As a result my students have a better understanding of different reactions to art and the function of art within different segments of the population. The artwork of non-western cultures are often glossed over in many art classes in favor of the western canonical artworks. However, I feel that by seeing and learning about the creative techniques and the history of non-western art an individuals artistic education can be greatly strengthened. Throughout history, the creative energies of artists have be exercised in tandem with the energies of other cultural pioneers in diverse fields, including literature, politics, and philosophy. I encourage my students to view the practice of art as part of this larger context, and to develop ways in which to integrate other fields of study with the practice of art. One possible way to integrate the study and practice of art with the greater society is through the use of web-based technologies. During the past year I have experimented with the use of a blog to foster dialog about projects and creative processes in an informal way outside of critiques. Such immerging technologies have made it

possible to more effectively teach the theory and practice of art and creative expression.