Just in time for the end of the school year, this is an introduction to Mariah MacGregor, art teacher at the Chilmark School. I recently met her and spent an afternoon with her and her fourth and fifth grade class.
Art rooms and art classes have changed since I went to school in the 1950s. Kids no longer sit at desks and all do the same project in the same way, “the right way,” as directed by the teacher. This room was designed to offer possibilities, to encourage independence and creativity, to allow each student to figure out his or her own way, to manage themselves, to be responsible with the materials they chose.
Walking into Ms. MacGregor’s art room, one sees cabinet after cabinet of art materials organized by medium, called art stations. There is an art library and a “museum wall,” where she has displayed pictures of three Island artists under 35, with an example of each artist’s work. Dan VanLandingham, Colin Ruel, and Althea Miller show her students that they too could grow up here and be artists. Another wall has quotes about art. “Art is not what you see, but what you make others see” —Edgar Degas. “Learn the rules like a pro. Break them like an artist” —Pablo Picasso. Inspiration all around.
There is a rhythm to the class. As students arrive, they file to their designated tables. Ms. MacGregor puts on some music, and they get right to work in this designated quiet time for drawing. They sign and date their drawings, then put their materials away and gather into a circle for a discussion of the day’s project. It begins with a word of the week. This week it’s “Build: to construct something by putting parts together,” perfect for an introduction to sculpture. She demonstrated how to use the hot glue, set up on mat boards to keep from getting glue all over everything. She showed them how to clean up, how to identify and store their work when they were finished. At the end of the class, they would all write in their journals about what they did, how they planned their projects, how well they executed them, and how they felt about what they did.
Ms. MacGregor introduced the sculpture and building station to her students with limited materials: mostly popsicle sticks and hot glue. The energy was exciting as kids experimented with new materials and ideas. Two girls worked together to make a moving car with a steering wheel that turned and spools for wheels. A group of boys continued an earlier project, a diorama of a city scene with buildings and a star-filled sky. “What should be the ratio of black to yellow painted windows?” they wondered. It was decided, “More black because it’s night.”
Ms. MacGregor grew up in Chilmark, attended the West Tisbury School, and graduated from the Regional High School. Her teachers, Paul Brisette and Janice Frame, inspired and encouraged her, and she felt lucky to grow up here with a strong art community. At Massachusetts College of Art and Design in Boston, she earned a bachelor’s in fine art, and a master’s in art and teaching.
Ms. MacGregor was influenced by Project Zero, which was designed to study and improve education in the arts, and choice-based teaching. Practice teaching at a Montessori school in Beverly, then getting her first teaching job at a Montessori school in Newburyport, Ms. MacGregor was immersed in the principles of a Montessori education: encouraging independence, giving kids lots of choices, designing the environment to allow kids to manage themselves. Ms. MacGregor says she sees herself as “the studio manager, there to facilitate their ideas.”
She returned to Chilmark four years ago, where she began her on-Island teaching life as a classroom teaching assistant. She also began an afterschool program teaching art to fourth through seventh graders at the YMCA, something she still does. One day a week, she teaches art to homeschooled kids at the West Tisbury library. “I started calling around looking to teach art full-time, and everyone said yes,” Ms. MacGregor said. This summer, she will teach a summer art program at the Chilmark Community Center and a four-week art class one day a week in July at the West Tisbury library.
She is busy and has a lot of energy, so she does everything. And does it all so well.
