Fairbanks Art Teacher Mitzi Noland stands next to two of her three pieces selected to be shown in the Ohio Arts Council’s Art Educators as Artists show at the Riffe Gallery in Columbus.
(Journal-Tribune photo by Will Channell)
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While art teachers help ignite the creativity in students, one local educator is getting her own time in the limelight.
Fairbanks High School art teacher Mitzi Noland is one of 46 Ohio art teachers with works being displayed in the Riffe Gallery in Columbus. It’s part of the Ohio Arts Council’s Art Educators as Artists gallery.
According to the Ohio Arts Council website, the show began Nov. 1 and runs until Jan. 5.
Noland, who has been on the Fairbanks faculty since 1997, said she first heard about the show earlier this year.
“In the summer, there was an invitation to art teachers from around Ohio to enter work for consideration,” she said.
Noland said 300 pieces were submitted, from which 68 were ultimately chosen. Among that 68 are three pieces by Noland.
Noland said she had never been part of a juried show before, “so it was kind of exciting.” She said the group who chose the pieces didn’t know “whose art was whose,” so it was based on merit.
“It was just three random pieces, as far as they were concerned,” Noland said.
One of the pieces Noland made is an acrylic painting.
Noland began the painting in 2014, and said while it’s fairly abstract, it contains some personal meaning.
“I’m from Colorado, so I love snow,” she said. “So it just started out as a piece that reflected the winter time, and then I revisited it this past year when we had some family issues.”
The other two are clay ceramic pieces. One is a plate with a cross in the middle, while the other is a smaller ceramic piece that ended up being purchased by a collector.
“I went around my house just looking for things, and took pictures of just about everything I had there,” she said. “The criteria said something about creative use of materials, and I latched on to that, deciding that these three were the best to reflect that.”
Noland singled out the plate with the cross as particularly important. She said her Christian faith is “extremely important” to her. Aside from that, she said she thinks “these three were probably just the best,” Noland said.
Having a piece sold by a collector was exciting for Noland. She said aside from craft shows, she’s never had one of her pieces bought as a result of a gallery exhibition.
She said it feels like it validated her as an artist. She said she shared some pictures of the piece with her students, who Noland said seem to approach her with more respect now.
She said she’s done craft shows, but “nothing to this scale.”
“It was just lots of fun and exciting to be a part of the art scene in downtown Columbus,” she said.