CSAE stands for the Caucus on the Spiritual in Art Education, and is a group of individuals that come together to support the connection between spirituality and art.
The Caucus on the Spiritual in Art Education (CSAE) seeks to:
• Study the relationships between the spiritual, the visual arts and art education in ways that advance pedagogy, research, scholarship, museum and artistic practices related to the spiritual in art education at all levels of practice and in diverse teaching and learning contexts.
• Embrace the study of inclusive and diverse content, images and ideas related to the spiritual within contemporary and historical multicultural art and visual culture and a holistic art education paradigm.
• Develop and nurture a community of art education professionals committed to advancing the understanding and application of the spiritual in diverse art education contexts.
CSAE Chairs
I was recently voted as Chair Elect for CSAE, which means I will serve as Chair from 2022-2024. I will follow an group of amazing leaders.
Peter London was a Co-Founder for the caucus back in 2008.
Peter London is an artist, master teacher, art therapist, international lecturer, and author of many texts on art, spirit, and nature, including No More Secondhand Art and Drawing Closer to Nature. He has offered his holistic approach to teaching art to thousands of students of all ages, from “art phobics” to professional artists in museums, colleges, art centers, and centers for holistic studies. He is Chancellor Professor Emeritus at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, and is a Distinguished Fellow of the National Art Education Association.
His book No More Secondhand Art was an inspiration for me when I transformed my project based classroom into a studio based classroom. I was introduced to the book when I attended a Summer Teacher Institute at MICA back in 2009. We were asked to create a tree that symbolized our life and our journey. It was a powerful exercise in visualizing parts of self.
Peters work with art and spirituality has been inspiring to me, and I am so honored to be building off of what he helped to start!
I have had to pleasure to meet and work with three other former chairs, Patricia Rain Gianneschi, Nancy Brady and Sheri Klein. I am so grateful for such a wonderful team of people to work with on bringing more light to the spiritual in art education!