An Interview with Dr. Joan Gaither (www.joangaither.com)

  As Dr. Joan Gaither was sitting in the lobby of the train station waiting to depart, she was working on one of her multi layered quilts: a composition busy and vibrant with photography, traditional fibers material, along with less traditional elements like strings of pearls and caution tape. Her quilts take on this quality in order to tell complex stories, such as the forces that led to Barack Obama's election in 2008, or the stories of the landowners (many of them African American) that owned and had to give up their land so that Maryland could build the Baltimore Washington International Airport. Each quilt has a story to tell, and requires a close look to know what is going on. It's no wonder that this quilter attracted so much attention in the train station: soon, a group of people were circled around her as she explained her art, where she came from, and what she was doing: “I'm a retired teacher,” she said.

“No you aren't!” said one of her audience members. It seems at least one member of the audience was still learning from this woman.

In retirement, Joan has refocused the artist-teacher mindset she has been cultivating all her life: along with teaching in train stations, she has been devoting more time to hosting workshops and community events, holding exhibitions of her work, and-- most importantly-- keeping her hands busy making all the work she can. In the midst of this, she had the graciousness to accept my invitation for an artist interview. We talked about her life, how she balanced teaching and artmaking in the beginning, exhibits she has held, a graphic design business she started and left to pursue an Educational Doctorate, and the connections that have helped her stitch together her career. Looking back on 40+ years of being an artist-teacher, she had a lot of advice to give, and it fell into about four different categories:

1. Manage Your Time.
   
   When Joan started out teaching, she taught during the school year and also over the summer, leaving very little time to do artwork. Eventually she realized that it made more sense to quit teaching over the summer, and spread her yearly salary over 12 months instead of the 10 months she was working. This gave her free time over the summer in which she could focus more intently on making her own art. “I made a calendar-- it's important to know when you're a teacher, and when you can have time to just work on your art.” The calendar included holidays, weekends, and hopefully a snow day or two every now and then. “Treasure your time away from public school,” she says.
   That calendar is not just about balancing school and art making. “One of the biggest challenges about being a teacher and an artist is trying to understand all the responsibilities you have, being prepared for the unexpected.” Joan included time for information gathering, documentation, and personal time. She also made plans A, B, and C so that if she could not do one activity when she wanted to in the way she wanted to, there was always something else that she could try. “It got to the point where students would come into class and say, 'So, Miss Gaither, is this plan B or C?”
   Being mindful of all the different tasks that go into being a professional artist and teacher is essential to managing both careers and accomplishing all the goals a person in these fields sets for themselves.
   
   
   
2. Keep Ideas Fresh.
   
   During school and out of school, Joan is a big proponent of travel. “Between 1970 and 1990, I was going to Europe, oh, maybe two or three times a year!” She accomplished this by hosting school trips designed by companies like the “Cultural Heritage Alliance” to whatever country she wanted to visit. She would invite about 12 students along every time, “because then a parent could come as well,” to help supervise and provide a different viewpoint while Joan was busy guiding them through projects associated with the program. In addition to doing activities assigned by the CHA, Joan's students were given sketchbook projects, and required to do at least one piece of artwork to use the techniques learned from that trip. “While they were working of course, so was I-- sometimes on the same assignment as them,” and other times on her own personal art. Sometimes, she would even meet up with other classes, and do some work with colleagues. These trips started out as 10 day excursions, but some of them lasted up to 28 days.
   When Joan wasn't taking students around the world, she would take weekly visits to museums, where she would pick up ideas by taking notes at her favorite exhibits. She got lesson plans from doing this, such as the time she saw an exhibition of Georgia O'Keefe's self portraits: 39 in different sizes. She gave each student in her classes some conte, 39 pieces of paper, and assigned them 39 self portraits as homework for a semester. When looking at this exhibit, Joan took notes on materials, paper sizes, and what O'Keefe was emphasizing in her different versions of herself. Sharing this information with students helped them better understand and depict themselves in new, creative ways. “When I do artwork, I always in some way tell my own story. I feel like we all do that, as artists, so that's what I try to teach my students: start with what you know.” Joan goes out of her way to expand her realm of knowledge, and it shows in both how she teaches, and in the way she constructs her quilts.
   
   
   
3. Stay Professionally Active.
   
   Joan is a part of many different professional organizations and she has been presenting within them for decades. “One of the best ways to strengthen your ideas is to put them out there!” She has presented in organizations at a local, state, and national level, including the National Art Education Association.
   As an artist she has exhibited at the School 33 Art Center, the Reginald F. Lewis Museum, and the Maryland State Arts Council. These are just a few of the things Joan has done within the public sphere to get her name out there and her ideas heard. Making connections at events like these have helped Joan find new opportunities throughout her career. Most of the exhibitions she participated in as a teacher over the years were opportunities she heard by word of mouth from her friends, such as Leslie King-Hammond, and Joyce Scott, friends that Joan has worked with on exhibits and projects since the '70s.
   
   “Another thing to keep in mind is that the art world is very small, and anything you say about anyone else is bound to get around.” Part of being active professionally means being polite to those in the community you're participating in.
   
   
   
   
4. Document!
   
   Taking photos of her own professional activities, and encouraging her students to do the same, has helped Joan disseminate ideas, put them side by side, and critically understand them at a deeper level. She couldn't stress the importance of good documentation as an artist-teacher.
   
   

And also, for anyone like me on the path to becoming an artist teacher, these words of advice sum up mindfulness for the next few years: plan for interruption, get enough sleep, pay back all student loans, and MOST IMPORTANTLY: make the time to get the work made.




This seems like sound advice to anyone about to graduate from MICA and head into the “real world,” artist, artist-teacher, or whatever else it may be. We're all in for a busy ride, this is only the beginning, and with any luck we'll be in hovercraft parking lots across the globe in 40 years attracting audiences to the stories we tell visually. It seems like this advice is very similar to what we've been learning in class, and the corroboration helps me know that we're being given a recipe to success in these words.