As I reflect on this school year, I keep thinking about the evolution of our art show.
Years ago, it looked more like a traditional school art show. Student artwork was framed and displayed in the gym. Families walked through the space, searching for their child’s work, taking pictures, and celebrating the beautiful things students had created. Artwork was available for purchase, and there was something very special about seeing children’s art treated with care and importance.
That mattered.
It still matters.
There is something powerful about a child seeing their artwork framed and displayed. There is something powerful about a family pausing in front of a piece of art and saying, “You made this.” For many students, that moment is a first experience of being seen as an artist by the people they love.
But over time, the art show began to shift.
At first, the shift was small. Then it became more visible. Eventually, I realized that what I wanted to celebrate was not only the finished artwork hanging on the wall. I wanted families to see more of the creative life of our school. I wanted them to see the thinking, exploring, problem-solving, storytelling, performing, building, revising, collaborating, and risk-taking that happens in and around the art room all year long.
The art show was no longer just an exhibit.
It was becoming something else.
Now, it has grown into the Briarlake Arts Fest.
This year, our Arts Fest included the Artome-framed student art exhibit, student artist vendors, family and community vendors, 3rd–5th grade performances, Dauphin Dance, food, bubbles, special guests, and our Family Cardboard Challenge. What began as an art show has become a full celebration of creativity across our school community.
One of my favorite parts of this evolution has been watching the Artist Market grow. Now in its fourth year, the Artist Market gives students the opportunity to create their own items, prepare them for sale, set up a display, talk with visitors, and share their work with an authentic audience.
This is not just cute.
This is important.
When students participate as artist vendors, they are practicing so many things at once. They are imagining possibilities. They are making decisions. They are solving problems. They are thinking about materials, time, audience, presentation, value, and communication. They are experiencing what it means to move an idea from inside their mind into the world.
They are not only making art.
They are behaving like artists.
That phrase has guided so much of my teaching over the years. In a Teaching for Artistic Behavior studio, the child is the artist and the art room is the child’s studio. My role as the teacher is not simply to decide what everyone will make and how they will make it. My role is to build the conditions where students can think, choose, explore, create, reflect, and grow as artists.
That belief changed my classroom.
And now, I can see how it has changed our art show.
In a choice-based art studio, students are not simply completing assignments. They are learning how to make artistic decisions. They choose materials. They develop ideas. They try things that do not always work the first time. They revise. They collaborate. They discover preferences. They build confidence. They find meaning in cardboard, paint, clay, yarn, pixels, paper, and possibility.
The Briarlake Arts Fest gives our students and families a place to experience that creative work beyond the walls of the art room.
It is an art exhibit, yes.
But it is also a marketplace.
It is a stage.
It is a family makerspace.
It is a community gathering.
It is a place where a student can see their framed artwork on display, sell something they designed and created, watch classmates perform, build with cardboard beside their family, and experience creativity as something shared.
The Family Cardboard Challenge might be one of the clearest examples of what I value in art education. Cardboard is humble. It is ordinary. It is everywhere. But in the hands of children and families, it becomes a castle, a creature, a game, a vehicle, a sculpture, a problem to solve, or a story waiting to happen.
There is no single right answer.
There is no perfect example everyone is trying to copy.
There is just material, imagination, collaboration, and the question: What could this become?
That is the heart of so much of what I want students to experience in the art studio.
The evolution of the Briarlake Arts Fest mirrors my own growth as a teacher. I began my career, as many art teachers do, with carefully planned projects and finished products in mind. Over time, my teaching shifted toward something more student-centered, more responsive, and more alive. I began to see the art room not only as a classroom, but as a studio. A living space. A space that changes because the artists inside it change.
The Arts Fest has followed that same path.
It has grown from a display into an experience.
It has grown from a place to look at art into a place to participate in creativity.
It has grown from celebrating what students made into celebrating who students are becoming.
That distinction matters to me.
Of course, I love seeing beautiful student artwork displayed. I love the pride students feel when their families find their framed work. I love the visual impact of a gym filled with color, line, texture, imagination, and student voice.
But I also want students to understand that being an artist is not only about making one polished piece for display.
Being an artist can also mean testing an idea, making multiples, preparing for a market, explaining your process, collaborating with others, responding to a challenge, performing for an audience, building something temporary, or trying something new even when you are not sure how it will turn out.
The Arts Fest makes room for all of that.
It makes room for the many ways creativity lives in a school.
It also reminds me that art education does not have to stay inside the art room. When we invite families, students, teachers, performers, community artists, vendors, and makers into the same creative space, we are saying that art belongs to all of us. We are saying that creativity is not an extra. It is part of how a community sees itself, celebrates itself, and grows together.
I am proud of what the Briarlake Arts Fest has become.
I am proud of the students who took creative risks and shared their work. I am proud of the families who showed up, built, listened, watched, supported, purchased, and celebrated. I am proud of the teachers and community members who helped make the event possible.
Most of all, I am grateful to be part of a school community where an art show can keep evolving.
Because that is what artists do.
We notice.
We respond.
We revise.
We imagine what else something could become.
And sometimes, what begins as an art show becomes an Arts Fest.
Inspired Art Ed 