Artist Spotlight: Shannon Vance Recognized with Excellence in Art Teaching Award

“Learning by doing, I guess, is how I've become an art educator,” Shannon Vance explains. And in that capacity, she’s spent the last 15 years helping others learn by doing, too. As the current Program Manager at Art Gallery of St. Albert, Vance creates fresh ways for visitors to engage with visual art, as well as stimulate their own creative sparks.

“Being able to teach curriculum through a more creative venue is something that's really close to my heart,” she says. “That's how I learned—being able to do any of the art projects for art or social [class], I'd really get involved and think it was a lot more fun than just reading a book and memorizing. …

Creativity is good for the brain.”

Vance is this year’s recipient of the Mayor’s Celebration for the Arts award for Excellence in Arts Teaching, honouring her work in the community. As the gallery’s program manager, that work includes brainstorming with her team to create programming inspired by exhibits on display, in addition to supporting schools with field trip plans that dovetail with educational curriculums. Vance also gives local artists opportunities to teach, having them share their skills as instructors for the gallery’s community classes.

“We're always trying to get new programs that maybe we haven't done for a long time, and get new instructors, for the community to try new programs,” she says. “Everybody wins.”

Her own artistic interests started young: Vance’s mother was a teacher who kept her creatively engaged outside of school.

“She was always doing creative projects with us when we were at home,” she explains. “That is something that I carried with me: being very interested in arts.”

Vance went to the University of Alberta, received her Bachelor of Fine Arts, and worked in graphic design while raising a family. And when she started helping out in her own children’s schools as a guest artist, something new sparked.

“That led to loving teaching kids in the classroom,” she recalls. “Then the gallery position came up, and from there I started assisting the other art educators and decided that was a great fit for me. … I've just been doing it ever since.”

For Vance, the opportunity to consider the art others have made, as well as develop one’s own artistic voice, is beneficial to the greater collective good.

“I think it's a really important aspect of our society, to have art out there, and a place for anyone to go and to do a free drop-in art program,” she continues. “Just to accept people. It's a good part of a community.”

Article Written by: Paul Blinov

More information about the St. Albert Mayor's Celebration of the Arts Awards here.

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