Oregon Coast Council for the Arts’ TAP (Teaching Artist Preparation) program provides community artists with tools and paid training to help develop their abilities as instructors. The goal is to tap into local talent to cultivate a team of teaching artists poised and qualified to share their unique skills, methods, and creative insights through guided arts workshops and classes.
TAP helps to bridge the gap between practicing one’s artform and teaching that artform to others in a meaningful way, offering local artists the training and support they need to become community teaching artists, who will then work with students, teachers, and the community at large on behalf of OCCA—increasing access to the creative process for all ages, youth through adults.
The program, led by Laurie Barber, provides over 160 hours of training and support to help selected artists develop new skills that deepen the quality and impact of their arts instruction—the desired outcome being a minimum of one new workshop developed. Those selected receive a stipend for the training period, which includes both in-person and remote sessions, and 29 hours of focused, specialized instruction. Selected artists need only arrive with a passion for their art, and a sincere desire to share it with others. The program covers topics such as lesson planning, time management, classroom management, communication styles, teaching methods, workshop preparation, and more.
Artists from all disciplines, styles, cultures, ages, and experience levels are encouraged to apply, including visual artists, theatre artists, literary artists, musicians, craftspeople, and more. Applicants should possess a genuine interest in sharing their talents with others and be available for and open to providing paid arts instruction following completion of the course, by way of workshops and classes that would take place on weekdays, evenings, and/or weekends.
INSTRUCTOR BIO: Laurie Barber is a visual artist from Southern California with over 25 years of arts education, arts administration and community engagement experience. She is the proud mom of two young adults that have both benefited from the power of quality arts education. Laurie creates and facilitates arts experiences for people of all ages and is especially passionate about creating professional development opportunities for artists and educators. We were all born creative creatures and Laurie’s life work is to find ways to increase access to arts experiences for everyone. All humans need and deserve creative outlets.
