A CONVERSATION WITH: BETH
This blog is part of our series, A Conversation WITH. As a media organization, we highlight members of our team - past and present - that have done awesome work with Wide Angle, while also pursuing their own creative goals.
Beth Holladay - she/her pronouns - is a Baltimore-based artist and teacher with over a decade of experience with community arts programs, art education, and freelance photography. After receiving her MA in Art Education from the University of Louisville, she led a public high school art program by initiating community partnerships, diversifying the curriculum, and creating avenues for student work to be exhibited in local galleries. She uses her experience and expertise in graphic design and photography to engage students and community members in art projects focused on inclusion and social justice. She maintains an independent art practice of hand-cut collage.
This past spring, Beth led our first virtual Baltimore Speaks Out (BSO) program where she guided each student in creating a zine-style story.
Current read: Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle
Song on repeat: Freddie Gibbs’ album Alfredo
Favorite spot in Baltimore: Patterson Park
Can you tell me about the graphics you created for Wide Angle’s social media at the beginning of quarantine?
When we started working from home, I wanted to continue to make content to engage students so I began creating an animation a day with my students in mind. That felt like a really good in-between way of getting me thinking about student needs and what might feel like a way to engage at this time. That became a very soothing experience for me to sit and meditate on students and draw things that I thought would delight them.
How did your daily animations shape your first virtual course?
Creating the animations inspired me to make worksheets and guides and things I thought would be joyful and unencumbered. Drawing out worksheets instead of making them in a word document was something I hoped students would feel inspired to dream with. The reason why that was so impactful for me personally was because it drew on my strengths and interests. That's not something that I think that much about when I’m in physical spaces. It's much more about all of the things that go into creating a space for a student - it doesn’t necessarily mean I’m engaging with students with a medium or method that I get a lot of joy from. That was an interesting thing that kept me intrigued with the class and gave me a sense of accountability and a feeling of an audience that was there that I could speak to.
How do you translate your values from a physical space to a virtual space?
A lot of times we get bogged down about what the limits are and the exhaustion and restrictions that teaching virtually presents, but I think there are a lot of beautiful ways that physical space translates into virtual space, and that empowers students to be very aware of their experience in the class. The novelty of switching to a virtual class allowed everyone in my storytelling class to learn together and collectively navigate how to interact with each other. We got to decide what we wanted to keep and what we didn't want to keep. As a class we were able to get inspired by students who were super engaged and creative in a way that highlighted their creativity even if that student in a physical space might show up as more of an introvert or independent worker and it just gave everyone a little different access to each other.
Also thinking about that translation, being about to have this chat feature really was interesting for me as a teacher to see students encouraging each other and like giving each other thumbs up or just sharing their lives but in a very supportive rather than an interruptive way - it wasn’t distracting like it could be if students were talking in a physical classroom. The benefit in a virtual space of being able to give students the autonomy to mute themselves or not - it made them more aware and invested in listening to each other.
What new challenges arose in a virtual classroom?
For me I think I expected there to be less exhaustion or less energy depletion around the actual teaching but I found myself getting really screen weary and I felt my students were too. When this class was going on students were still doing school and they were at various schools. They were all dealing with the boredom and the screen exhaustion from their day at school and then they were hopping off of that and coming to this class. Transitions for middle schoolers are really important - thinking about each transition needing to be articulated and trying to help students navigate what they are being asked to do.
What nourishes you?
As an artist, one of the things that I enjoy the most is creating gifts for people. It’s very nourishing for me to create art that is intended to go to one person. I think about the work of Joseph Cornell who was making these assemblage boxes for family members to either depict who they were or share a message or a hope for them and I find that to be very soothing and positive in my life when I get to sit down and create something that way.
What quality/word/mantra will be guiding your virtual teaching moving forward?
There’s two things that come to mind. One is responsive, being really attentive to and responsive to student needs, interests, engagement, not being complacent and expecting students to be human beings. Wanting to be responsive to what that might mean and not making assumptions on what students’ needs might be. The other part of teaching virtually that's really important to me is bringing excitement, energy, and enthusiasm. It really caught me off guard recently when I had a student that said, “hey I just wanted to say Ms. Beth, thank you for being excited about this. I don’t feel like I have a lot of people or teachers in my life right now that bring that enthusiasm.” I don’t think of myself as a peppy person - I didn’t realize that was happening at all. Not that anyone should put on airs or a mask but being intentional that I’m bringing enthusiasm to a virtual space is really critical and it translates into student engagement and excitement.
What is one of your favorite opening questions to touch base with students in a virtual setting?
If you could have any superpower what would it be? In sharing that with students, almost everyone said something about going back in time and stopping coronavirus or to be able to go anywhere safely.
Photo of a space in your home that brings you joy:
Here’s a pic of my view from my art studio, with the little baby mourning dove (I named her Franny) that I’ve watched grow from an egg! Her nest was in that big blooming hot pink crepe myrtle.
To learn more about Beth, visit her website: bethholladay.com and follow her on IG (@beth_holladay_art)
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MEET THE AUTHOR
Hannah Shaw is the Communications Specialist at WAYM. She is a multidisciplinary designer and received her BS in Marketing from UMD and MA in Social Design from MICA.