Monthly Mentor

Natalie C. Jones (February)
Each month, a different member is the guest writer for the NAEA Monthly Mentor Blog. Natalie C. Jones is an artist, small business owner, and the director of education at the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African-American Arts + Culture. She has 10 years of experience working as an art teacher and teaching artist throughout the east coast and the Midwest. Click "GO" to read her full bio.

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« We’re in this Together; Art Educators and COVID-19 | Main | Caring through Art »

May 04, 2020

Meet Holly Bess Kincaid, Her #ArtEdPortraits, and Her Journals

By Michelle Harrell

What I consider an art museum educator’s dream of a social media challenge began in March at the onset of the COVID-19 quarantine. People around the world recreated art history icons with modern-day props of their quarantine. The challenge originated by Amsterdam’s Rijksmuseum as Tussen Kunst & Quarantaine, otherwise known as #betweenartandquarantine, and was quickly imitated by museums around the world. The Getty Museum’s responses became so popular it has been referred to as Getty Museum Challenge regardless of which collection inspired the photograph. If you have been following it, you have probably seen photographic recreations by Holly Bess Kincaid and her art students.

Holly Bess Kincaid
Time Magazine interviewed Holly about how she had challenged her students and other art teachers through the hashtag #artedportraits. Holly joined her students in this challenge with her own artistic responses to COVID-19 with photographs like her interpretations of Christina’s World or Young Woman Drawing. Holly’s clever interpretations are my favorite in the entire challenge. Holly stated:

“In a time when we are seeing so much in the news and media that scares our students and adults alike, what better way than to go back to your childhood and play pretend — and be someone else for a few minutes?” Kincaid asked.
Source: Time Magazine

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I’ve followed Holly on social media long before getting to know her through the NAEA SAL program because she is a go-getter in our field. Holly is the current president of the Virginia Art Education Association. She indulged me in an interview to explore how she uses multiple journals as part of her self care plan as an art educator. Read my interview with her on this post on my blog.

Visual note taking

Follow Holly @ArtLadyHBK  on Twitter and Instagram for her prompts and responses to #JournalCare, our 30-day Visual Journaling for Self-Care Challenge. Interested in joining the challenge? Learn more here.

-MH

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