My research before I retired from teaching German was on interdisciplinary education and creativity. The groundbreaking work of Harvard’s Project Zero (on portfolio assessment, arts education, through-lines, and understanding) was critical both to my deliberate approaches to integrate the arts into the Foreign/Second language learning experience and to my ability to assess students’ performance of understanding.
When I taught through theater and visual arts, I did so as a means of presenting culture and German history. When teaching visual arts, I mainly taught about the Blue Rider artists and “entartete Künstler” (so-called “degenerate artists”) whose art was banned by the Nazis. In order to bring art to life for my students, I had them make art (both in the US and on our study trips to Germany). I did so to help them understand art that they were studying, to loosen them up, to give them plenty to reflect upon, and to push them beyond their comfort zone. This was also a good way to get students to engage and talk with each other in German—everyone brought something unique to the table. In a very real sense, art was for me both the content and the context of my teaching. Students looked more closely at the art we studied and did so with greater interest, when they were also trying their own hand at art. They learned not only more about what they were studying, but also about themselves; they learned, as well, to look more closely.
After teaching for decades about the life and art of some of my favorite artists, like M. Beckmann, F. Marc, M. Chagall, V. Kandinsky, P. Klee, G. Münter, C. Salomon, and others, I began painting, myself. My first teacher was Canadian Artist, Kristyn Watterworth, who opened me up to experimentation and pushed me to keep going. That experience of having a teacher like Kristyn was life-changing, and it gave me the confidence to do bolder experimentation (something I always encouraged my students to do!) with my art and my teaching. I now work every day with acrylics, graphite crayon and charcoal, and with ink, making large and small paintings on canvas, as well as small “fairy tale” paintings on various surfaces (e.g., cereal boxes, junk mail, business cards and tea bags). I often paint over earlier work because I love what happens to the final painting (though, is anything ever really a “final” painting?) when layers of the past peek through. Almost everything I paint reveals hidden worlds, full of surprises. I want you to look more closely and find the stories. Many of my paintings show creatures looking. This all parallels and relates back to my work as a teacher, leading students to look closer at the language and culture. While traveling to Germany with me, students learned that history can be found anywhere you look . . . but you do need to look!
Currently, I am working very small, making 3” by 3” paintings on recycled surfaces that are painted on both sides—these can be bound into miniature books or they can be easily framed. I like that these can be sent through the mail at a time when mailing a larger package via the post office can be challenging (due to the current Covid-19 situation). It is easy to send a small world to others and it may arrive just when they need it! All of my work is intuitive, and a message is often revealed to me only after I have completed a painting. Maybe that is why I paint. —Janet Hegman Shier
Please click through to see a sample of my work. Visit often. I will add more paintings soon.
