Master printmaker Valerie Hammond received her MFA from the University of California at Berkeley, where she was awarded the Eisner Award. She was appointed to her first teaching position in Lacoste, France through the Cleveland Institute of Art. After 3 years in France she moved to New York City, where she began teaching art part time to inner city school children through the STUDIO in a School program. Hammond is currently teaching advanced printmaking at Columbia University and New York University. She has taught printmaking at the Yale Norfolk Program; drawing at Cooper Union School of Art; and has been a visiting art critic at RISD. Most recently he has had exhibitions at Walker Contemporary Gallery in Boston Mass, Wave Hill Glyndor Gallery in collaboration with IPCNY, Bronx New York, Garson Baker fine Art, New York, The Cue Art Foundation, New York and The Portsmouth Art Museum, Portsmouth Maine.  She has had international exhibitions in, France, Spain, New Zealand and India.   She has just finished a print edition with Tamarind Press in New Mexico as well as a new print edition with Wildwood Press in St Louis, Mo.  Both editions will be published in the fall.  She is currently co-curatiing a works on paper show with Kiki Smith, which will open at the NYU 80 WSE gallery in September 2011 and will be having a solo show with LittleJohn Contemporary in New York City, which will open in October 2011.  She lives in the lower east side of New York City with her husband and two children.

Valerie Hammond has been a teacher with STUDIO in a School for many years. She spoke with us about the impact of arts education and the close connection she experiences between her own work and the work she does with STUDIO.

Valerie Hammond on her approach to teaching art to children:
While installing a past exhibit, I realized how my students and my work with STUDIO in a School have always been very intertwined with my artwork. In teaching I often incorporate ideas that I am exploring in my work at the moment and we explore these themes and ideas together. In this way we become excited and discover things together as well as being very invested in the artwork. I also bring some of my own work I am working on in my studio and hang it in the classroom so children can experience my art making process as well, and really understand what it is like to be an artist.

I believe that all children should have authentic art experiences in the studio. I think children should be looking at art and pondering why it exists in our world and nurture in them the desire to make marks, problem solve and express themselves in a visual language.

On the impact of arts education:
It is very special for me to live and work in the community in which I teach. I love the give and take and sharing of ideas. Besides working at the school I feel like I give back to my neighborhood community on a very deep and visual level. I find that the art experiences have a huge impact on the way children learn and make connections in school on so many levels. Children learn how to build on their knowledge and use what they know. In my STUDIO program location, the Neighborhood School, the children start drawing from observation very early, at age 4, and by the time they are in 4th or 5th grade we are making very large, ambitious prints and murals.