| Description | | The "Looking Closely" day-long professional development workshop invites art educators to explore diverse ways to construct narratives through visual art by contrasting two fundamental approaches to observation. Using the powerful works of two distinct artists as case studies, participants will learn different ways artists look closely.
Through experimenting with art materials and approaches, teachers will gain practical insight into how changing vantage points is key to developing artistic ideas, problem solving, and telling nuanced stories about human experience.
This immersive session provides teachers with practical strategies for fostering visual literacy and critical thinking in their K-12 classrooms and allows time for them to create their own art works and basic syllabus through discovery and observation.
Presenter: Wendy Bantam
Wendy Jane Bantam works regionally and internationally as a teaching artist. She uses the tools of music, theatre, sculpture, painting and writing to teach a deeper understanding of languages, reading, math and science. She lectures on creativity and critical thinking.Her lectures are found on TEDx and Ignite.
Bantam holds a BFA in Fine Art from the University of Kansas and an MFA in painting from the University of Nebraska~Lincoln and is an Artist-in-the-Schools-and-Communities with the Nebraska Arts Council. She has been a visiting professor in painting, art history and art appreciation at the University of Nebraska-Omaha, Midland University and a lecturer on Arts Integration Learning for the UNL College of Education and Human Sciences.
Wendy partners with teachers, communities, schools and fellow artists to bring creative curriculum and interdisciplinary arts experience to the forefront. In combining storytelling with visual art, she engages communities of all ages, languages and identities through visual arts and verbal and written word. Wendy assists teachers and students in turning their own stories, or a story they’ve read, into a creation of performance or visual art. |
| Location | | ESU 9 Adams Room |
| Status |  | Open (Below minimum number of registrations)
0 Registered
8 Minimum; 25 Maximum |
| Section Dates | |
| | | |
| April 8, 2026 | 9:00 AM | 3:00 PM |
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| Registration Deadline | | April 1, 2026 |
| Transaction ID Code | | REGISTRPD |
| Add to Calendar | | Add to my calendar |
| Registration Fees | |
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| Lunch | | Lunch will be provided. |
| College Credit | | This section is not available for college credit. |
