HoMA hosts DOE’s inaugural Fine Arts Conference

At the Department of Education’s inaugural O‘ahu Fine Arts Conference last week, visual art teachers from across the island got the chance to experience the Honolulu Museum of Art’s Soundshop program. Instead of watching their students craft raps and beats, instructors got into the groove with musical mentors Jesand Amodo, Maryanne Ito, Nick Kurosawa, and Eric Dubois. 
 
“It’s really beneficial for us because we were able to connect literature, basically, with music and things that children are more interested in, instead of just pencil and paper, it’s more hands on,” said Alvah Scott Elementary kindergarten teacher Lailani Peltier after taking the stage with her peers. 

Soundshop was just the beginning. After lunch, teachers joined break-out sessions that saw them making prints, drawing, critiquing each other’s work, learning about the elements of art using colored pencils (and getting tips on how stretch budgets by extending the life of those pencils) and experiencing art in the galleries in new ways. Learning & Engagement staff took existing student tours, museum tours, and teacher workshops and adapted them for the conference, creating explorative experiences for teachers.  
 
DOE Fine Arts Educational Specialist Una Chan has dreamed of holding this conference for years. It was natural for her to tap longtime collaborator HoMA to help orchestrate the event. The goal is to help prepare DOE educators statewide for the rollout of the National Core Arts Standards for the 2025-2026 school year and give them the tools to integrate NCAS into their curriculum.  
 
The conference saw HoMA’s Associate Director of Learning & Engagement Christine Boutros and Education & Community Programs Manager Laurie Faure giving presentations on Kaua‘i and Hawai‘i Island as well. (There was also a session on Maui that HoMA did not participate in.) On O‘ahu, 69 teachers participated, and the statewide total was about 100. 
 
“The DOE has provided a unique opportunity for HoMA to share its Lending Collection and educator resources across Hawai‘i,” said Boutros. “It brings us joy to see the myriad applications and relevancy our collection has to support and build on a teacher’s toolkit. The conference has also been an invaluable experience for DOE collaborators to connect and support each other.” 

An unexpected angle emerged from the conference—it turned out to be as much about “me-time” for teachers as it was about stocking up on educational tools for their students.  For the session Printmaking in the Classroom: Collagraph, HoMA supplied scraps of cardboard, leaves, doilies, burlap, raffia, tissue paper, yard, string and other textured items. Teachers had free rein to use them to create compositions on a board then ink them up and make a print.  

Kalaheo High School’s Tara Gumapac, who teaches general art and metal work and jewelry, said, “I’m finding this workshop very therapeutic. It’s nice to be able to take time for myself to create, but know that the skills that I’m learning I can take back to the classroom.” 
 
It was an eye opener for Director of Learning & Engagement Aaron Padilla, who co-led the printmaking experience. “Teachers do it for their students,” said Padilla, “but what happened is they saw they can do it for themselves, too. I encouraged them to do what is exciting for them and translate it into curriculum for their students.”