Oregon Arts Org Honors 4 Portland Educators

From Portland Public Schools:

October 21, 2019

For Lincoln High School art teacher Addy Kessler, the rewards of being a teacher can be distilled to one moment she sees in her students.

“It’s so exciting when they discover new ways of doing things, that ‘Aha!’ moment for them,” she said. “It’s the best.”

Kessler and three other arts educators from Portland Public Schools were honored for the many aha moments they helped create, winning four of the seven awards given at the recent Oregon Art Education Association conference in Rockaway Beach.

Fellow art teachers nominated their colleagues for the awards, and OAEA board members determined the winners by evaluating their profiles as art educators and their involvement and commitment to their students, schools and communities.

Kessler won the top honor, the Oregon Art Educator of the Year Award. She was joined by PPS winners:

• Nicole Penoncello, Buckman Elementary School, Elementary Art Educator of the Year
• Lilly Windle, Lincoln High School, Art Honor Society Advisor of the Year
• Carolyn Hazel Drake, District Visual & Performing Arts department (VAPA), Distinguished Service to the Profession Award

Kessler became the second PPS teacher in a row to earn the top honor, winning the year after Madison High School’s Randy Maves was honored. Like Maves, who teaches graphic design, Kessler’s teaching combines the aesthetic side of traditional art with the real-world applications of a Career and Technical Education (CTE) approach.

Kessler, who is in her fifth year at Lincoln and 10th year as a teacher, teaches CTE Art Design, which shows students the processes and materials used to create functional pieces that also are visually pleasing. The products her students learn to create include clothing, apparel, lighting, interior designs, shoes, retail displays and architecture, all of which have potential as future careers.

“Sometimes it’s these things that we don’t necessary think of as a career pathway, but basically our entire environment around us is built, even down to the landscaping,” she said.

Kessler’s program has become so popular, she has had to drop teaching ceramics, which she had done throughout her teaching career.

Kessler, like many PPS art educators, remains an active artist. She designs and makes clothes, and used to have a handbag company.

Drake, who with VAPA teammate Kristen Brayson (last year’s Distinguished Service to the Profession winner) created the PPS Master Arts Education Program, has a full portfolio of pieces, many using traditional domestic materials such as porcelain, fabric and thread.

Penoncello, who is in her third year at Buckman (an arts focus option school) and seventh in PPS, reflects her interest in maps and cartography in pieces in several mediums.

Windle, who has taught at Lincoln since 2002 and is currently teaching graphic design and digital photography, works on art collaboratively with her own children, who are PPS students, and has been running workshops for children and adults for many years.

Congratulations to our arts educators, who keep the arts a vibrant and vital part of Portland Public Schools.

This press release was produced by Portland Public Schools. The views expressed here are the author’s own.