2025 Winter NOW Conference Preview (Ep. 452)

Welcome to Art Ed Radio, the podcast for our teachers. This show is produced by The Art of Education, and I’m your host, Tim Bogatz. All right. It is conference week. I’ve been talking about it on the podcast here for a while. Last couple of episodes have featured some of our conference presenters, but this week is finally the week. Amanda and I are traveling to Chicago on Thursday. We have the kickoff on Friday, main event Saturday, After Pass on Sunday. A lot of great things going on.

As always, we want to do a conference preview episode to talk about some of the exciting things that we have happening over the next few days. And if you’re not registered yet, you can find everything you need at theartofeducation.edu/now. We will link to that in the show notes as well. But for today’s episode, Janet Taylor is here. She and I have been working to put together this conference for months, and I think we are both looking forward to everything that’s going to be happening this weekend. So, Janet, welcome. How are you?

I’m good. Thanks for having me. I love chatting about this conference. It gets me so excited.

I know, I know. We’re both probably more excited than anyone else just because we’ve been trying to put this together for so long and it has finally come together. We’re going to have an awesome weekend with a lot of really, really cool things happening. But before we get to all of that, I would love to know how the return to school has been for you over the past few weeks. How are we feeling about school right now? How do you think most teachers are feeling about school right now?

That’s a really good question because I’m not sure.

That’s fair. That’s fair.

Yeah. Over break, I really didn’t do any… I totally disconnected from everything, detached, and I think I just needed that. It felt really good to come back and I felt, “Okay. All right. Here we go.”

I know along with putting together the NOW conference with me, you’ve done a ton in the Art of Ed community. Super fun every time I go check in there, but can you give us updates on what’s happening in the community?

Yeah, so it’s exciting watching it really build. I mean, I think we have over 4,000 people in there-

Yeah, members. Yeah. It’s really exciting. And I have to say, okay, so when you go in to become a member, you have to fill out a couple of questions just to make sure that we know that you exist and you’re not a bot. So I’m loving reading those and seeing what interests people or why they’re coming to the community. That, to me, is really exciting to see.

Yeah, for sure.

We have such a range of teachers on the community now. So we have veterans, of course, veteran teachers, and we have a lot of new teachers, new art teachers looking for some support. We have general education teachers who are turning to art teaching.

Also very interesting.

I know. It’s really exciting. We have teachers working on their master’s program. We have some working on National Board, and what is always interesting to me is also, what do I want to say, nontraditional art educators. Maybe they’re on the museum side, maybe they’re more online or homeschool, that kind of stuff, which is really interesting to me too. Or I think I just saw somebody who is a dance teacher and they wanted to access ideas to translate it into their role. I was like, “This is so… What a great community. How rich, right?”

That’s awesome. There’s always so much to learn from people who are teaching in different spaces, indifferent ways. So that is very cool to see.

Yeah. Yeah. So as all these people are coming in and we’re building, it’s really exciting because we’re getting new spaces. We have some perks. We have just really interesting content and engaging conversations, right? So my favorite also is when people are like, “I’m leaving Facebook to come here.” And so they’re looking for that same, it’s the same engagement that you would get in-

If you’re only using Facebook-

In a positive way.

… for the Art teacher groups just come to the community, okay? That’s way better place to be.

Yeah. So each month we have themes. So right now, we’re talking about resetting expectations, classroom management behaviors, that kind of stuff. And then next month, I’m excited because that’s coming up here in a hot minute, right? We’re going to be looking at curiosity and creativity in the art room, but what I love is people post anything. Right?

Yes.

Yeah. So we have these spaces. So we have a teacher lounge, which is the main space, right? And then we have spaces that are specific to your level like high school, middle school, elementary. You can be part of all of them if you want, but it’s nice because you get your people and you know how to find the help that you need or whatever. But my favorite is, talking about me, I’m struggling with students’ names as the new semester started. It’s my kryptonite. So I’m like, “Help, everybody. What do you do to remember kids’ names?” Or if you’re curious about the best erasers to use or if you want to laugh at my alpha slang [inaudible 00:05:41].

You can say your students don’t want to laugh, but other teachers might want to laugh.

No, exactly. If I want to feel some sort of camaraderie and I’m not feeling, like crickets in the classroom. I’ll just talk to you guys. It’s great. But yeah, we have a art gallery too, where you can share your own artwork. You can share about your ceramics exploding in the kiln. You know what I mean? You just get all of the things that we need, right, that support. Yeah. So it’s pretty awesome. And then of course, I know we’ve talked about this before, the art club and the pop-up studio. We have one of those last week and then it’s just great opportunities to connect.

So many good opportunities to connect, whether, like you said, you want to just have those conversations, whether you need confession time about something that you did wrong. But no, people are there to support. If you just want to make some art with other art teachers. All those opportunities are there, which I think is very cool.

Now, I’m not biased, but I just want to say, it is a judgment free zone. It has been really, really wonderful.

Yeah. I really appreciate that aspect of it. Okay, so the reason I ask though is because we also have a community space talking about the NOW Conference, some of the presentations that we’re looking forward to. So I was wondering if you’ve seen anything in there in the community that’s worth sharing about what people are looking forward to. But I would also like to know what you are looking forward to, like what presentations at this conference you think are going to be worthwhile for people?

Well, this is always the hardest question to answer, right? Because I know you and I, we know all of the presentations, and I get so excited about them all. So how about I’ll share a couple of the things that, or what people are excited about in the community-

Yeah, that would be awesome.

… so we can share that. Okay. We’ll start there and then I’ll go into my diatribe of all the things that I love. Okay, so Katherine K says, I love this. She said, “I always look forward to the NOW Winter Conference because it’s like my Super Bowl.” Which it is my Super Bowl because I ignore football. But anyway.

“I’m most interested this year in the talk about embracing boredom in the art room. I feel like sometimes I feel so pressured to be producing every second and I feel like I nag the kids to keep going.” Just so, yeah, common feeling, right? “Giving myself and my students permission to have some head space and process a concept is very appealing.”

So this is a great presentation by Chris Hodge, which you might have known from other presentations, but also mini masterpieces he did with us. And he talks about sitting in the boredom and activities that you can do to engage students’ thinking processes instead of accessing a phone or accessing online screens, imagination and envisioning and all that stuff. So I am excited about that one.

Yeah, I was just going to say quickly, I think that’s sort of a tough concept for us to wrap our heads around. It’s also tough to think about alternatives to phones, getting kids to convince them to maybe put them away. But I think Chris gives you a good framework on how to think about it and specific ways to approach it, and I think that’s going to be really helpful for people.

Yeah, I agree. And then you just had Abby Houston on the podcast. So people are excited, of course, about hers. I am too. Anna in the community says, “I have kindergarten and first graders, and having a sketchbook is on my supplies list,” because Abby’s talking about how to develop a thriving sketchbook practice, I should have said ahead of time. So Anna says, “I want to take more opportunities to use the sketchbook besides using it as a precursor for the projects and creativity time, like free time.” So I love that, integrating it into a regular practice in the classroom.

I’m just thinking about all the explorations you could do with first and second graders in the sketchbook, just trying out so many new things.

They’re so creative and imaginative. It’s exciting. Also, a big popular one will be the reduction printing with Melinda Moen and Wendy Kubiak. Yeah, so I think a lot of us really struggle with teaching reduction prints. I’ve taught printmaking and it just seems like, “Oh, no big deal. Not a big deal. I know how to do printmaking.” It’s not as easy as it looks, to think backwards and subtract layers-

It took me awhile-

Right?

… to wrap my own head around it and then even longer to figure out how to explain it to students.

How to teach it. Yeah.

Yeah. Seeing Melinda and Wendy just breeze through it, I was just like, “Oh, they’re so great.” It’s going to be inspiring, I think.

Yeah. Okay. So a couple more that I’m excited about. Vintage video games with Catie Nasser. I was watching this and my son was sitting… I was doing work and he’s sitting on the side, and I was like, “Oh, my God. You have to see this. We have to do this.” And he’s like, “Oh, video games. What?” But it’s the analog, it’s just so great. The engineering and the stem action going [inaudible 00:11:14] steam going on there, is really exciting. So I like that one.

Making little video game consoles out of cardboard and they’re actually playable. It’s such a cool concept. I think people will like that. Can I share a couple things I’m excited about too?

Yes, please.

Okay.

Please.

So forever, people have been asking like, “Hey, we need more elementary-specific content. We need more secondary specific content.” And we try and make all of the presentations applicable, K12, but we decided that we’re going to go with specific content this year. So the second hour of the conference we’re going to split. So elementary people can go see some elementary presentations, secondary people can see some secondary presentations, including yours, Janet, and we’ll have some specific things. And so I’m excited to try that out. I hope it goes well. We have the Art Teacher Roundtable, which will be another really, really good conversation. It’s about creativity, both for ourselves and for our students. So that should be a good one. I have some great presenters, and then Jen Leban and Todd Leban are going to be talking about AI and how we can leverage it in the art room.

And so, I know there are a lot of people who have avoided learning about AI or avoided using AI, and for better or for worse, that’s fine. But Jen and Todd do a really good job of explaining what it is, showing how it can be used, how it can be of benefit to us and to our students. And I think they take a lot of the intimidation factor out of it because I know [inaudible 00:12:53] be scary for a lot of people, but they do a great job of simplifying and explaining, and showing how it can be used. So I think that’s going to be a really good presentation for people to see.

And then of course, Carrie Mae Weems. She has been a photographer and artist that I’ve loved forever. She is our keynote presenter and could not be more excited about having the opportunity to interview her and for everybody to see that interview. I think it’s going to be a great one. So looking forward to all of that. The other thing that people are excited about and I should ask you about this, is the kickoff artmaking. You’ve worked with Ruth Byrne before. Ruth is amazing art teacher who has done presentations for us before. She’s going to do artmaking for us and also, she’s going to be presenting about Johari Windows. Can you just give us a rundown of what, I guess, Ruth’s expertise is and what she’s going to be presenting for everybody this weekend?

Yeah. So Ruth is elementary, K through, I think five, is the top grade level that she teaches. And she’s just truly a visionary, I think, in her realm. And so years ago, a couple of years ago, I guess, I saw her post something about Froebel’s gifts, and I was like, “What is that? What are you talking about? What gifts? What?” But I watched this, this is how we got her to the NOW Conference, I think a couple of years ago. I was like, “Can you tell me more about this because I’m really intrigued?” And it’s really mind-blowing, hearing her talk about this, because I think for me, this is something I didn’t really understand or think about. And it’s basically teaching kids art kind of from backwards. So in a way, we always think about teaching them to draw first, right?

Yeah.

And with this, it’s using blocks, like three-dimensional and using their creativity that way. I mean, that’s how kids, when they’re very, very little, start creating, right, is with blocks. And then breaking that down into shapes and then breaking that into lines and just, I’m butchering this, right? She does an amazing job of teaching this. So I think it’s going to be fun to watch her kind of in action actually creating with that.

Yeah, absolutely.

And then she’s doing, at the conference, the main event, she’s doing a presentation on Johari Windows, which is basically again, this way to deconstruct how to analyze work, kind of almost a graphic organizer in a way to help students think more deeply about the connection between the artist creating and their intentions and the audience perception or reading that text or whatever, and then using it backwards again to help create artwork. So again, I feel like she has these really big kind of topics that my brain struggles to wrap my head around, but she does it in such an accessible way that I’m like, “Wow, this is mind-blowing to learn about.”

Yeah, absolutely. And I was just going to say, I will link in the show notes to Ruth’s old presentation about Froebel’s gifts. And so, if anybody’s feeling like an overachiever and they want to do their homework before the artmaking session on Friday, you can watch that and get a good introduction. But Ruth will also explain, she’ll be in the artmaking room with Amanda, and I know that’s going to be a great time. So yeah, you can check that out. You can learn about Froebel’s gifts, how to bring them into the elementary art room and do some really cool art making with that. And then on the flip side, I’m going to be in the other art making room with Andrea Slusarski, sort of our resident creativity expert. She is a professor in Colorado, does all sorts of research and really cool lesson design having to do with creativity.

And so, we’re going to do some different creativity exercises and talk about how you can use them for yourself, for your own artmaking, and also give a few suggestions about what you can do with your students and how you can bring that back to your classroom. So yeah, you can take your choice on Friday night and see where you want to go and what you want to do as far as artmaking, but I think both sessions are going to be spectacular. Okay, Janet, speed round time. I would love for you to-

Okay.

… give us some good advice on the best way to approach the main event on Saturday. There’s five hours of learning, all kinds of presentations. What’s the best way to go about it for people who are coming to watch everything live on Saturday?

Okay, so I feel like our audience has got to be pretty familiar with the way the conference is set up for the main event, but just a quick reminder that it’s curated. And so you just kind of come, you show up. And so I think that’s the best part of it. You don’t have to sift through and figure out where you’re going to go, what you’re doing, which presentation you want to watch now or later, except for maybe the secondary and elementary hour that we’re adding.

But every presentation is good. They’re all going to be good.

Yes.

You don’t have to make difficult choices. You can watch all of them.

Right. Exactly. They’re just all there curated for you. So my approach is always to kind of do a quick preview of the conference guide. I like to highlight anything that I need to see. I’m like, “I have to see this.”

Right.

And then I mark anything kind of a, I could watch this right away or I could put it in the After Pass because I need to give myself a bathroom break or something like that, or a stretch break, that kind of thing. And I know we’re doing a little bit more of that this time, a little bit more extra breaking to give you that space. But I think coming, creating yourself a little nest to be in for the day, I think is the best approach, to kind of sit down, have your snacks in front of you, make sure you have your art materials that you might want to use, your sketchbook to take notes.

That kind of a thing, I think is a great way to do that. I also like to put in AirPods or earbuds or something so that nobody bothers me, right? I like to go in my basement, I like to make my nest, like I said, and I’m like, “I’m out for the day.” It has been difficult. I’ve had in the past where I’ve had to juggle the kids or whatever, [inaudible 00:19:40] is difficult. But the great thing about that is, even if you miss something, it’s all on the After Pass. So you can always mark that later like, “I have to go back and watch that.”

Yeah. So yeah, please don’t neglect your children, but if you have the chance-

Just like go.

Yeah, if you have the chance to kind of lock in, as the kids say, you can do that. And yeah, that is highly recommended. Okay. Then you mentioned the After Pass, that’s going to be available on Sunday for anything that people missed. What is the best way to approach that?

So I usually go through what I missed or wasn’t fully engaged in to rewatch that. I make sure I rewatch anything that really intrigued me or I needed to digest a little bit more to take back to my classroom. And I also really love going back and finishing any artmaking that you couldn’t do in the moment. Sometimes you feel, yes, right? Like, “Oh, I didn’t have my materials ready,” or whatever it was. So going back and rewatching that and feeling good about your artmaking experience, I think is a great way to approach that.

Yeah, I was just going to say, a lot of times there are things where I will watch on Saturday and be like, “Oh, that is a great idea.” And you just figure like, “Oh, I’d like to use that sometime.” It’s really good to go back on Sunday or in March, whenever you have time. Go and rewatch but then think specifically, think more specifically about how do I use this in the classroom? Not just, “Hey, this is a cool concept,” but think about, “Hey, this fits in with this lesson or this fits in with this idea that I’m going to be teaching.” And you can think more specifically about where that’s going to go in your curriculum or how you can use that. Okay. And then Janet . . . Oh, go ahead, go.

Oh, sorry. I was going to say, to add onto that, I think what’s great is we have all those resources available too. So if you’re wanting to put that into the classroom and you’re like, “Wait, I forgot about this one material,” or whatever, it’s like you can just download that information too, and so you have it available for you, which I love too.

Exactly. All right, now before we go, do you have one piece of advice for people to just make the most of the conference? How can they get the most out of the conference day?

Well, my favorite is always to connect with presenters and connect with your community personally. So we provide all the Instagram handles. You can go into the community and meet with people, talk about what you learned, what was exciting, ask questions. And then when you’re on social media or on the community, you can actually, when people are going back and working it in the classroom, you can actually connect with that too and see what they’re actually doing, which is really exciting. So personally, the connection between all of that is the most exciting for me.

Yeah, I think that’s a great thing to do. And I would just say, the teachers who are presenting at the conference are excited to share ideas. And so if you want to talk to them more, they’re going to be excited to talk to you. They love to share this stuff and they love to put their ideas out there if they’re going to help people. So they love hearing that things are helpful. They love you asking questions. So absolutely reach out and I think that’s a great piece of advice. So, all right, Janet, thank you so much for taking some time to preview the conference with me. Super excited to see everybody on Friday and Saturday, and then let you all go on your own on Sunday. But it’s been great and we will both see everybody later this week.

Yep. See you at the conference.

All right. Thank you to Janet. I appreciate her coming on and like we said, we really could not have put together such a good conference without her. Now, before we leave, let me give you just one quick rundown of what’s happening. So Friday, we are doing the conference kickoff with games and artmaking, a ton of giveaways there. That’s going to be Friday evening, starts at 7:00 PM Central Time. We’re going to do some artmaking about 8:00 PM Central.

So like I said, all sorts of amazing giveaways. We have a detective mystery that should be a pretty fun game. It’s a great time to relax, a great time to do some artmaking and just kind of enjoy the art teacher community and have some fun. So come join us on Friday if you can. Saturday is the main event. This is the conference itself, all of the presentations, all the learning, everything that you’re looking for. Just a full day of presentations for everyone who is there. So that starts on Saturday at 10 AM Central, goes until 3:00 in the afternoon.

Then on Sunday, we have the After Pass with additional learning that you can access for the rest of the year. So it’s an asynchronous day, and then you have the entire calendar year to dive into all of the learning that’s there. So not only all of the presentations and the artmaking from the first two days of the conference, but additional presentations that dive more into specific topics. So you can really find what you’re trying to learn, what you’re looking for, what you’re wanting to check out, a lot of additional topics, a lot of additional presenters, some really, really good stuff in there.

So make sure that if you’re attending the conference, you check out the After Pass as well, maybe something that piques your interest and can really help you. And if all of that sounds good to you, all three of those days, and I hope it all does sound good. Again, you can register at theartofeducation.edu/now. You can find all the information you need there, find everything you want to know about the event, and I’m hoping that we will see you there.

Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you for listening to the episode today. Thank you for listening to every episode. Come join us at the NOW Conference next Friday, January 31st, next Saturday, February 1st, and next Sunday, February 2nd. You can find all the information you need, and register at theartofeducation.edu/now.