Art student moonlights as teacher
By Kelly Sue Mitchell
Kathy Ballard is not a typical art student at IVCC.
She is an art teacher with a degree in two-dimensional illustration. By day she teaches in Depue, kindergarten through 12
th grade. By night she takes pottery with Dana Collins, picking up three-dimensional skills to teach her students.As she says, all art students know the best way to learn 3-D is to use clay.
She is currently working on a series of three to six clay masks, one of them of Medusa, as a result of a mythology unit she is currently teaching.
"One of the girls that I am teaching is drawing Medusa," Ballard said.
Ballard, who is married and has two children, is in her second year of teaching, and she plans to continue in the field. Her educational plans include a graduate degree from an Illinois university.
She has continued to study art and to teach it, she said, because it was something she wanted to share with others. Her favorite art medium is oil painting.
She enrolled at IVCC because of "proximity and a decent art department."
Collins said her student/teacher "has always impressed me, with her seriousness and creativity, perhaps because she herself is a teacher."
Collins continued: "She thinks independently and works hard, with great enthusiasm."