Pop Culture and Teaching Art (Ep. 461)

Hello, everyone. Just a quick note. I know you’re expecting the Mailbag Podcast at the first Tuesday of the month, but I have been so sick that Amanda and I did not even get a chance to record it. Instead, we are going to take next week’s episode of which is a great interview with Andrea Slusarski about pop culture and teaching art. We’re going to play that for you today, and then we will be back next week with the Mailbag episode.

For now, enjoy this interview with Andrea Slusarski, and next week we will have the April mailbag for you. And in the course of doing those things we talked about where we draw inspiration from, and she takes a ton of inspiration from pop culture and visual culture. And I’m very excited to dive into how she does that, and more importantly, dive into how we can use pop culture and visual culture to connect with our students.

‘Cause I think there’s a lot there as far as capitalizing on big moments of finding shared interests or finding things that we can find common ground on and talk to our students. And then how we can help our students take those inspirations, those pieces of work from pop culture, visual culture that inspire them and help them transform those into part of their own voice, part of their own artwork. And there’s a lot to talk about there. With Slu, I always talk a lot. Let me go ahead and bring her on and we can get this entire conversation started. In big moments of finding shared interests or finding things that we can find common ground on and talk to our students and then how we can help our students take those inspirations, those pieces of work from pop culture, visual culture that inspire them and help them transform those into part of their own voice, part of their own artwork. And there’s a lot to talk about there. With Slu, I always talk a lot. Let me go ahead and bring her on and we can get this entire conversation started.

The time, because I’m going to date myself, but YouTube was new.

Okay. Yep. I remember those days.

Yeah, YouTube was new. Twitter was very, very small.

Mm-hmm.

We were at this explosion of visual culture and the internet really breaking off. And he really framed it as this way of, this is how we make the art room approachable. This is how we make our content connect to students’ lives. He really paved that way into making me thinking about, there’s something more to visual culture. It’s not just this thing that is happening around us and it doesn’t matter in school.

Yeah.

And he really got me thinking about how do I bring in pop culture references? How do I talk about musicians and movies and those are art and help my students connect with that. And then fast-forward to today, I love using memes and gifs and movie references. They sprinkle in with all of my content heavy things to lighten things up.

Yeah, I think that’s a good way to frame it, to lighten things up. And like you said, it’s a way to make things approachable or make yourself approachable and give kids something to talk to you about. And I think there are a lot of shared experiences out there, and I guess I’m thinking about just in the past couple of years, those big pop culture moments that everybody talks about. We don’t have that monoculture anymore where everybody’s watching the same shows or listening to the same music. Everybody has their different niche interests, but there are things that break through. And so I’m thinking about Taylor Swift and the Eras Tour. I’m thinking about Wicked or Barbenheimer last summer, or even the Kendrick Lamar halftime show a couple months ago. Those are all things that got people talking, that almost everybody was talking about, and those became those shared experiences there. I guess my question for you is how do we capitalize on those big pop culture moments when there are things that everybody’s seeing, everybody’s talking about? How do you bring those into your classroom, how do you talk about those with your students?

Yeah. And I guess at first it’s like, if something is so big that it’s breaking through and it’s having trickles throughout all sorts of generations and people and places, that’s good art.

Yes, yes.

That’s the goal of the artist in wanting to share their expression.

Mm-hmm.

And so I just feel like those moments when you can see them and they’re in your face, right? If you’re paying attention as an art teacher, you can get a pulse or know. They’re just exciting ways to get your students to open up to all the creativity in the world. Like I said, that’s art. That is an artist. Taylor Swift is an artist who is expressing her form of creativity across the globe.

Yeah. Yeah.

That’s wild. We haven’t seen that kind of level of expression ever.

Mm-hmm.

Maybe Michael Jackson, respect, but these pop culture moments, they are my favorite hooks to start a class. Did you see that new Beyonce music video? Oh my god, Taylor Swift dropped a new album. I can’t think straight. I’m a huge Taylor Swift fan and a huge Beyonce fan. I think that is known, but just to clarify.

I was going to say that’s coming through very strongly.

That’s coming through. These, I’ve just always felt, are natural ways to connect with my students and just show them how excited I can get about visual culture. And then it’s a reminder to them that they are also a part of this visual culture. And when you give a deeper meaning to music, videos, video games, movies, whatever they’re enjoying, graphic novels, seeing how those things play in our visual culture world, you’re just inviting your students to go deeper into the understanding of the thing. And when they have that deeper understanding, I think it also invites them to pay attention more, to actually get more curious about what they really like. You really like Star Wars? Study George Lucas. How does George Lucas talk about his art? They’re new artists, and if they can start to follow their interest, they can go really deep into where their creativity lies. Again, I feel like I talked to you all this time about just building students’ confidence with art.

Yeah, yeah.

And students are already analyzing pop culture, being a part of it and talking about what color dress did Taylor Swift wear? Why did Kendrick have dancers split down the middle? Words like symbolism and artist intentions, art analysis is a part of their everyday pop culture, and so it it is a way to hook them in. They’re already interested in it. And then I flip it into now we’re analyzing art.

Yeah, yeah.

And You don’t even know.

In doing that Dr. Evil-

Yeah. My fingers, yeah.

Yeah. No, I think that’s good. I want to talk more about that in just a second, but I also want to dive in a little bit more on just the idea of how we do that, how we get kids talking and thinking about art if we don’t have those big shared interests. I said before, every kid’s pop culture, their visual culture that they’re dealing with, that looks different from kid to kid, and they’re all very different from what I’m interested in these days. And so when we don’t have those shared interests or shared moments, how do we talk about that with our kids? How do we get into those conversations if we don’t have that easy introduction?

That’s a very fair question, because I feel like I am getting out of touch.

No, literally 95% of the people listening to this are shaking their heads yes right now.

I don’t know what skibidi toilet is. I don’t. I also don’t, to quote my mom here, get it.

Yeah.

But I think that you raise a good point where it’s like, okay, our culture is going to be different because, pop culture is so specific to your time.

Mm-hmm.

And my first thought is just remembering that.

Yeah.

And just resist that urge to be like, oh, kids these days, I don’t get them. They’re weird. My parents said the same thing about me.

Yeah.

Instead, just, I don’t know, do the art teacher thing and get curious.

Mm-hmm.

And know that you may not like that pop culture, you may not really understand it, but it’s just a curious dive into what your student’s interests are.

Yeah. And I have talked about this before on the podcast, but at the beginning of the year or beginning of the semester with kids, I ask them to give me recommendations for a song. I should listen to, a YouTube video I should watch, whatever. Do I have to enjoy it? No. Do I have to understand it? No. But does it open up a conversation? Absolutely, it does. And so you can start talking to them about those things. And like you said, just get curious, ask kids about what they’re doing and those can start some of those conversations

Be open. Sometimes my students teach me the coolest things, and then I’m super cool to all my friends.

Yes, absolutely.

Literally this week just had undergrads show me an art teacher they liked on TikTok, and A, they were like, you don’t have a TikTok, Professor Slu? And I was like, no. I’m an old woman, you guys. But it’s fun. It’s being able to connect on that and be curious. And back to your song thing, that is my favorite classroom culture move.

Mm-hmm.

I still do it. I’ve been doing it for a decade ’cause I love music and I do want to know what people are listening to, because it can open up cool conversations like, hey, did you know that this song you is actually sampling a Bee Gees song?

Yeah.

Which is hilarious. My students are like, who are the Bee Gees? And I’m like, well, let me tell you. But yeah, that’s my favorite move. I always ask for a song, and I make Spotify playlists of all of my student songs.

Mm-hmm.

If they’re okay, I always ask to give me an appropriate song.

Yes.

There’s asterisks there. And then I love seeing, I’ve seen high schoolers, and now I see undergraduates when it’s work time and I play the playlist and their song comes up, they almost light up. They’re almost like, oh my God. A, she listened to me. And then B, they think like, man, professor Slu’s so cool. She listens to… And I’m like, no, you ding dongs. You told me like this song. I wanted to listen to it.

Yeah.

And then again, when you open up that, back to we don’t have to share the same pop culture as our students, once they see that you are the adult that’s not going to shut them down, you would be amazed at the stuff they want to share.

Yeah.

‘Cause then I’m getting emails like, “Hey, I listened to this cool song today, and I thought of art class,” or, “Hey, I really like this anime series on YouTube. And I was watching it and in the background, they had a Leonardo da Vinci drawing that we looked at in class.” That stuff’s cool when they can start to see it themselves, and then they feel, again, super confident and super, look at how smart I am. I actually know what that image is.

Yeah. And then they’re willing to talk to you about it too and they’re willing to share that. And that is a great feeling.

And then if you’re still stuck of, oh, that’s a lot to do, Slu. You’re always trying to blow my mind. Thankfully, I would say that there’s lots of multi-generational fandoms that you can start with. One that pops to my head is Star Wars.

I was going to say, you mentioned Star Wars a bit ago, and I think that’s a good place to start.

Star Wars is one of my favorites to get into funny art arguments over because it is so generational. My favorite Star Wars movie is probably different than your favorite Star Wars movie.

I was going to say, I’m just enough older than you that you probably like the prequels.

Love them.

I hate the prequels. Yeah.

I love them.

Exactly.

I love them ’cause you know what? They were made for me as a 13-year-old.

Yeah, and I was too old. Those came out, I was like, oh God, this is ruining everything.

And then I have to stop myself though now when I see the new stuff on Disney+ where I’m like, oh, this is for kids. And I’m like…

And you’re like-

Yeah, I’m not a kid.

Just step back and think about it. You’re like, oh, exactly. It is exactly made for kids.

Yeah. And I think that’s fun. And then there’s also other pop culture things that aren’t just music and movies. There’s Polaroid cameras, watch things that come back around. And if students are into that, you can be like, look at how cool and hip I was, I had a Polaroid camera.

Yeah.

That’s all I’ve ever tried to be, Tim, is cool and hip. And then speaking of multi-generational, I just got to throw Elton John in there ’cause what a creative that can span decades of people.

My parents listened to Elton John. He’s been around for 50 years.

And reinvent, but it’s still Elton John, right? I still know that that’s Elton John, but reinventing, is connecting with pop culture at the time. Just did a song with Dua Lipa. What?

Yes. Well, and I’ve heard him talk about how much he loves Billie Eilish, and it’s amazing that he’s still so involved with all of that. And I love it.

And that’s the thing about being curious, right? Here is an artist who loves his art, and isn’t going to get caught up in, oh, kids these days are doing blah, blah, blah, blah. It’s like, no, what are you doing? Let’s do it together. Let’s share this. Yeah, there’s all sorts of connections that you can do that when you just open up like, hey, I just want to see what my students pop culture is like.

Yeah.

And then I might share mine. And then music’s a really fun one because most musicians are really, really good at sharing who their influences are.

Yes.

And even the Billie Eilish’s and the Sabrina Carpenter’s and the Pop Girlies of today, which that could be a whole podcast of just pop girlies, but you know me. They’re really good at saying, Joni Mitchell’s a huge influence of mine.

Yeah. Well, I was just going to say, my daughter’s really into Olivia Rodrigo, and well, I am too now after going to the concert with her.

Yeah. You’re the coolest dad ever, Tim.

But Olivia Rodrigo has talked about her love for Billy Joel and for Alanis Morissette, and now my daughter listens to Billy Joel and Alanis Morissette. And I was like, this is amazing. Thank you, Olivia Rodrigo. And now my daughter and I have all these things to talk about and my experiences with Alanis in the nineties. And it’s so much fun when you can, like you said, open up those avenues and connect across generations. That’s a sign of some great work.

That’s exactly what we’re talking about. She knows that you’re open to it and gets to be like, have you ever heard of Alanis Morissette?

Have I?

Have I, Let me talk to you.

How much time do you have?

This one’s going to really hit when you have your first heartbreak.

Yeah, yeah.

But that’s cool. And to keep going onto pop culture references, I would be remiss to not drop in the, I’m not like a regular mom. I’m like a cool mom.

You’re a cool mom.

Yeah, I’m a cool mom. I mean, that’s me and my nieces and nephews all the time that was sitting down and being like, what’s new? What’s fun? I totally feel like I’m Amy Poehler in Mean Girls when we do that.

Yeah. Well, I love that you and I are talking about trying to stay hip, but the references that we’ve dropped are me with Dr. Evil and you with Mean Girls straight from the late 90s.

Austin Powers, A Spy Who Shagged Me though, still works.

It does.

Piece of art.

Yeah, it’s great. Okay, so let’s talk about all of this informing the art that we make or the creative pursuits that we go after. I would love to just know your perspective again on this. How can pop culture and the art that we’re paying attention to in those ways, how can that inform our own art making, our own creative pursuits?

And here’s where I switch and get really serious.

Okay.

No, I’m just kidding. Creative people are both, they’re an and. They can be goofy and fun with pop culture, and they could really care about their art and understand the complexities behind it. And so when I’m looking at pop culture, when I’m studying these artists, artists are really teaching us how to pay attention.

Mm-hmm.

And when you’re paying attention to your everyday life, you are finding things that influence you. Just like Olivia Rodrigo being influenced by this music, we get to ask our students, we get to ask ourselves, okay, well what’s the history of the art that’s come before you? And how are you going to build on that? How are you going to take that further? Austin Kleon, author that I really like, he’s a writer who draws.

He always talks about the role of us as artists is to emulate our heroes. I think pop culture’s that opening gate to figure out who your heroes are, who your creative influences are, and then it’s your job to emulate them. Alanis Morissette, I bet, is so proud of Olivia Rodrigo.

Yeah.

I always think of that when I’m creating or when I’m thinking about my own work, I’m like, would Creta Cat like this?

Right.

What would Keith Haring think? And I love that exercise I do with my students. Often I have them build a creative lineage.

Yeah.

And it starts at pop culture and then it ends up fanning out into this beautiful web of who influenced who. And oh, look at all these connections. This is my history. This is what’s going to help inform me to keep this art going.

Mm-hmm.

And then back to how pop culture can help our classrooms or help our students think more deeply about their art, it’s a great way to look at a moment in time and see what’s happening. And often that context with students, and I would just say the general public of people who haven’t studied art history, understanding the context of why that art piece was made is important.

Yeah.

And you need to know what was going on in the Hudson River School when Thomas Cole was painting.

Mm-hmm.

A New Yorker cartoon just did a Thomas Cole painting. And I love when my partner is like, he knows that it’s art history, but he doesn’t know enough art history.

Right, right?

And he’ll be like, what is this? And I’m like, oh, that’s Thomas. I’ll be like, well, that’s a Thomas Cole painting.

Again. How long do you have?

Yeah, how long do you have? Do you want to go to a history of the Hudson River School artist painters? But again, that’s where that pop culture, here’s a New Yorker cartoon that has just opened the door for a whole history of art history that we would’ve never had a conversation about.

Mm-hmm.

And something that you would’ve never stumbled upon because we live in 2025 and there’s visuals and stuff coming at us all the time.

Yeah.

I think that pop culture, like I said, can really be that first step into getting our students to be more curious, into getting our students to understand that context is important in art. And it’s a lot easier to have that context conversation with something that they’re living and feeling themselves.

And then you can be like, okay, well why do you think French romanticism was so important in that time? And it’s cool. It’s cool to have those conversations. And like I said, I just want my students to leave my classroom feeling like they’re the smartest people in the world.

Well, sometimes when you can give them that context, that history, those connections like you talked about, that’s absolutely what’s going to happen with them. I love it. And it goes back to that idea of confidence that you were talking about earlier. When they have that understanding and that knowledge, they’re going to be more confident about what they’re doing, what they’re researching, what they’re talking about. And I like that a lot.

And back to that research or my undergrad self, think of how many students in your class may have never been to an art museum yet.

Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

And that may feel very out of their league, but the cartoons that they really like, those can be visuals. The great wave pops up in so many anime.

Yes.

It almost becomes a game. Can you find it? And that’s just a cool way to, again, confidence. Okay, maybe you’ve never been to an art history museum before. Maybe this is out of your league at this point in time, but actually you have been participating in art history and you just didn’t know it.

Okay. Let me ask you, I’m just trying to think of a good way to wrap this up and to get some advice for people. And I’m just thinking about tying this all together, taking the interests that our kids have, that our students have, making them a part of their art making. And I’d love to know any advice you have for that, because kids always seem to just default to, I painted a copy of this album cover, or I copied this portrait of a musician that I like or a movie star that I like. How do we get them beyond that? How do we get them to reference and appreciate pop culture, but bring it into their work in an original way?

Tim, what a question. And something I think about a lot, honestly, because I do feel like it’s the art teacher’s job to teach our students about visual culture and everything that means. What is copyright?

Mm-hmm.

What is Creative Commons? Why can you sample 10 seconds of a song, but what’s a cover? Why does that work? Weird Al Yankovich, he’s under a parody law. What does that mean, right? And instead of just copying, we get to again, go back to that creative lineage I was talking about. You want to emulate, you want to, as young artists, my myself, you copy your favorite cartoon characters in a sketchbook.

Yeah, absolutely. It’s a great way to learn.

It’s a great way to learn. And an art teacher who is helping a student connect to what they’re into, I think that’s where the relationship with your student comes in. Hey, I see you’re drawing a lot of Goku’s. I’m going to use Dragon Ball Z. I see you really like this style of drawing. How do you want to make it yours?

Yeah.

Let’s get really weird. And this project is a landscape project. How could you make a landscape that these characters can live in? What’s the line quality? What’s the color? Break it down, analyze it, and help the students see and just help lead them from that copying stage to this now you’re on your own path. And I love when, I get this a lot, even with undergraduates. I just wish I could find my style.

Yeah.

What’s my shtick? How am I as a creative? And it’s like, you’re already doing it. It just takes a little bit more reflection, a little bit more sitting and incubating to take that next step, to move into the emulation.

And in the art room, use pop culture to have these conversations. What is copyright? What is plagiarism? Why is this example bad, but this example is okay?

And with pop culture, we have lots of examples of that nuance. Because you can sample a song, what are the rules that are sampling? And why did, was it Queen? I’m blanking. Why did they get mad at Vanilla Ice?

Vanilla Ice and Queen, yes.

And then those are pop culture moments that you get to have really cool conversations with students. And I think that, again, it makes it approachable. If I came in and was like, we’re going to talk about copyright law today, how boring.

Right.

But if I could have examples, if we could have, I loved when I taught with high schoolers setting up little debates.

Yeah, yeah.

What a fun way for students to start to understand. Again, it’s very nuanced. It’s very hard. What is Creative Commons? What does that mean? What is plagiarism? What are the rules? What are our boundaries? Because as artists, we are asking them to pull from their influences, but then we’re saying, but don’t plagiarize it.

Yeah, but don’t copy. And that’s a tough line to walk sometimes.

It’s a very tough line to walk, especially when you’re just starting out and you’re new, and you really just want to draw your favorite Avatar characters.

Right, right.

But what’s really cool is, okay, well if you make this yours, that could be really interesting. I want to know what your voice is in this. And that’s where I like being the art teacher and getting to know students and getting to know what their interests are, and then being that supportive guide of, okay, you have something here.

Mm-hmm.

Let’s think of that. Let’s move it. You’re obviously drawn to this color palette. You’re obviously drawn to this style. You really like scary movies. Well start to analyze scary movies. What do you like? And then you can pull those into your photography, right? If you’re like, oh, I really like how light’s used in scary movies. Okay, that’s something to explore.

I was going to say, so many avenues to explore with that.

And I think that that’s really fun. And as a working visual artist myself, I have a lot of illustrator friends, painter friends. And the thing with pop culture being so readily available is I think there is a lot of copying happening.

Mm-hmm.

And people just don’t understand that that’s not okay.

Right.

And so I have a lot of friends who will reach out to me and be like, I think they ripped off one of my paintings.

It’s taking my stuff.

And it hurts.

And that’s when I am like, this is a job for the art teachers because I just think that the majority of people just don’t know.

And if we can get them in our high school art classrooms, our middle school art classrooms and we can have those conversations and they at least understand these terms, those are going to be adults that can see the creativity in their world, can see their place in that whole bucket of all the creatives in the world, and just have a better understanding of the art they’re living in.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. Well, Slu, thank you so much. Super fun conversation. I appreciate your experience and your expertise. And I’m sorry we couldn’t talk more about Taylor Swift, but I do feel like we still-

I kept it under control.

Had a good conversation here. Thank you.

I’m going to update my CV today.

Absolutely.

Pop culture expert.

Resident pop culture expert.

It’s been my dream.

I’m glad we could make it come true for you.

Thank you. Thank you so much. And thanks for always having me on. It’s a pleasure.

All right. Thank you to Slu for coming on, or should I say thank you to Slu, our resident pop culture expert, for coming on and sharing all of her ideas with me and reminiscing about some old music, some old movies, all that stuff that we love. But I think the biggest point is no matter who you are or where you are, you have those things, whether they’re music or movies or other parts of culture that you get excited about. And it’s okay for you to let your kids be excited about those. Let kids see you be excited about your own things and embrace what they’re excited about as well. You don’t have to love it, but you can appreciate it, you can talk to them about it. And hopefully you can get them pointed in the right direction with using those pop culture moments, those pop culture inspirations to inform their own creative pursuit.

I think that the best that you can do there is, like I said, like we talked about, just appreciating what’s there, finding that common ground when you can, finding those connections when you can and making sure that we can take those interests and make them a part of your art making. Art Ed Radio is produced by The Art of Education with audio engineering from Michael Crocker. Thank you as always for listening. And as always, we appreciate any time you can share this episode out with anyone else who you think might enjoy it. And if you have time to leave us a rating or review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts, we always appreciate that as well. We’ll talk to you next week.