About Mira Reisberg

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About Mira

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Australia
Despite growing up in a working-class suburb of Australia, I was filled with a love of eccentric animals and light drenched landscapes.The bold colors and patterns of Aboriginal art inspired me as a young artist and still do. I drew constantly, sometimes using my drawings to make sense of things that were difficult and other times drawing to escape into a beautiful world of my own creation. In my art, I could be a mermaid, a bird, or a kangaroo.

Libraries and Exhibitions
I loved books with a passion (as did everyone in my family). We had a local library in an old building that looked like a cathedral, the librarians were heavenly, like angels and goddesses. They would help me find books that I was interested in and suggest others that I might like. In 1976 I had my first exhibition of paintings and drawings called "A Different Kettle of Fish" (this is an Australian expression for anyone or anything that's a bit unusual or different). It was very successful and encouraging.

Travel and Culture
During my twenties I lived in the bush and in cities, painted and drew, performed in street theater and made movies. I lived an adventurous life traveling around the East Coast of Australia. In the early 80s I came to the United States. Over the years I've been lucky enough to live or travel to San Francisco, New Mexico and the Southwest, New York, Washington DC, Oregon, New Orleans, Seattle, Los Angeles, San Diego, Mexico and Vancouver as well as trips to Bali and Europe. Experiencing these places has widened my world and my respect and appreciation for life and the different ways that people live and make art.

Making Art, Children's Books, and Higher Education
During my years in San Francisco, I painted murals, had many exhibitions, and created art for eight picture books. I also taught art in many settings ranging from elementary to college leveI for 20 years. While living in the Bay Area, I attended Mills College, where I earned a Masters in Fine Art focusing on painting and digital art. After many years in San Francisco (primarily in the Mission district), my husband Guy and I gave up our beautiful rent-controlled flat and moved to Washington State University in Pullman where I completed a PhD in Education with an emphasis in Cultural Studies and Art Education while teaching art to pre-service teachers. After graduating, I applied and was accepted to teach in Northern Illinois University's Art Education program outside of Chicago.

Academia and Now
As a professor, I was required to not only teach, but to also research, write and publish (see scholarly articles), leaving little time for making art. It was while writing some of these articles that I realized how interconnected my personal art, children's picture book art, research interests, and teaching practices are. But I missed making art and books and the West Coast and am returning to California where I will continue to write articles, do author/artist school visits and professional in-services, teach, make art and craft, and begin work on some exciting book projects.

Research and Teaching Philosophy

My work as a researcher and educator is located at the intersection of race (or ethnicity), place (environment) and culture as manifested in visual culture. Consequently, I use visual culture studies, postcolonial theory, place-based education, becoming minoritarian, critical multicultural, intercultural, critical race theory, and ecojustice lenses to look at a variety of visual experiences that create and mediate culture. These include traditional and contemporary sources of fine art, indigenous art, children's picture books, films, comics, graphic novels, advertising, and the built environment - particularly retail edutainment. However, my primary focus is on visually reading multicultural children's picture books to explore embedded social and environmental constructs.

I embody this research in my teaching practice based on these three principles: First, I believe in practicing a pedagogy of pleasure predicated on the belief that if students find personal meaning or enjoyment in what they do they will do it a lot and inevitably get good at it.

Second, I incorporate Vygotsky’s theories of scaffolded learning whereby students develop greater skills by building sequentially on prior skills, and Dewey’s theories of experiential learning so that students can connect their learning to both personal experiences and their communities at large through democratic participation.

Finally, my teaching philosophy highlights the importance of context and community in students’ lives and in the world surrounding art production. Thus, I create classroom experiences using the perspectives described above to promote social justice and environmental awareness by connecting personally meaningful skill-building projects with issues pertaining to culture and place. We do this by contextually studying the work of historical and contemporary artists whose art is relevant to issues of power, culture, community, or environment, such as Diego Velasquez, Francisco Goya, Fred Wilson, Art Spiegelman, Barbara Kruger, Ann Chamberlain, Andy Goldsworthy, Kathryn Miller, and George Littlechild among others. Each class we discuss art education readings related to social or ecological caring, and study an artist, a multicultural picture book, and other visual culture sources, such as films, cartoons, and advertising, to show the interrelationships between art and culture. We then create meaningful art projects that frequently work directly with community organizations or benefit the local community.

All content copyright Mira Reisberg 2009
web design www.mirareisberg.com contact Mira at miraguy (at) gmail.com