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Woodcut, 32" X 48", 2017
Students carved 4' woodcuts that were printed by a 2-ton steamroller.
Silkscreen, 2017
Moving from Photoshop to Silkscreen, this student created a powerful poster for the annual art show.
JOANNA TOMAH
I earned my BFA at UMass Amherst in 2007, where I studied painting, ceramics, printmaking, and digital media; though what shaped me as much as any studio was a long-standing love of math. The connection between logic and creativity has been visible in my work for many years.
In my twenties, I spent time working at a local pottery studio, learning the ins and outs of a kiln and developing tile making processes that still live inside my mosaic work today. I later earned my MAT degree at Salem State University, and completed my student teaching at the Amesbury Middle School in Massachusetts.
Shortly after student teaching, I was hired as the Upper School Art Teacher at Sparhawk School in Amesbury, MA. Teaching at a progressive school gave me something rare: the freedom to build curriculum from scratch and learn alongside my students and colleagues. I was able to teach all of the media I loved — Photoshop, silkscreening, photography, woodcut printmaking, mural arts, and just about anything else I could get my hands on. Every year, our art show was structured so students could sell their own work, giving them a real taste of what it means to be an artist in the real world.
During my years as an educator, I developed and led a Steamroller Printmaking event, using a 2-ton steamroller to print giant woodcuts created by Sparhawk School students. The event included a collaboration with Amesbury Middle School, whose students printed giant collagraphs inspired by their Egyptian mummy curriculum.
More recently, I collaborated with River Valley Charter School in Newburyport on the "Building a Better World" mosaic wave mural in downtown Amesbury— coming in not with my own project, but in support of theirs. There's something I genuinely love about that kind of work: bringing my own experience and skills to someone else's vision and helping them find the path from idea to reality. That experience reaffirmed something I've always believed, that making art together has a magic that goes far beyond the finished piece.
Helping others find and shape their own creative voice is still the center of everything I do.
Medicine Vial Cap Mosaic, 2016
My mother, who worked at Beverly Hospital, collected the tops of medicine vial caps to complete this student built mosaic.
From Photoshop to Silkscreen, 2017
Much of my curriculum was built around visualizing student voices. I also combined available tools for each project, allowing students to bridge media together and watch as their art moved from the computer into the real world.
Camera Obscura, 2015
One of the first projects I developed was turning our computer lab into a giant camera obscura. We cut off all of the light into the building by covering the windows with trash bags, and then cut a small circle to allow light to stream into the room. The image projected upside down onto a piece of foam board in the classroom, showing the students the science behind a camera.
Jimi Hendrix, Spray Paint on Records, 2016.
During an upcycling class, students took a field trip to a recycling center where we found a box full of records. This student then created a giant stencil, and used spray paint to create a portrait of the artist, Jimi Hendrix.
Ceramic Mosaic Mural, 2019
An ocean themed mosaic mural was created by 11 mural arts students over the course of four weeks.
Wood Stencils, 2018
Students created images in Photoshop and converted the image to work with a CNC router, carving a stencil out of wood. We then used the stencils to create spray painted images.
Acrylic Painting, 2019
Street Art, 2017.
Students used various media to create street art inspired work, including photoshop, stencils, silkscreening and spray paint.