Alzaruba .

Inclusive, adaptive, and collaborative, my creative sensibility seeks after the implications and intuitions of a spiritual investment in the invisible and the mysterious. In tandem, I love the contradictions of the physical, the visceral and all that celebrates the profuse diversity of life.

I believe that everything and everyone is related or connected in complex ways. It’s a matter of hunting and digging for the surprises and implications between issues of identity and the body to uncover the resonant abstraction of explicit and implicit elements. This has led to investing my heart in teaching as well as other community based activities.

Much of my 3-D work has revolved around the construction of complex multi room installations for the past two decades that foreshadowed current trends in social practice. In 2012 a collaborative relationship with Liz Swanson was formed to create Dialog+ Read Less

Dialog+ is a collaborative social practice comprised of Alzaruba and Liz Swanson. Their mutual concern with creating public intersections and events is predicated on an inclusive ethic in which additional cell members are invited to participate in the creation of new projects. Hope and healing go hand in hand. Both have independent visual art careers, yet have been working together on various public projects initiated by Alzaruba over the course of the past decade.

In 2012, Swanson took the lead in a third collaborative proposal between them that took place in Leakin Park as part of the 3rd annual Art in the Park program. In turn, she also initiated a successful installation for Baltimore’s Artscape that year, which expanded their work into a new level of conceptual development, resulting in a warm public reception and media coverage. They share a lively studio.

Alzaruba is an award winning artist and teacher with an international visual arts career that includes a series of interactive public installations as platforms for performances, space development, object making, painting, photography, video and critical writing. His vision was initially developed while serving in the military as a team member of the Navy’s celebrated flight demonstration squadron, the Blue Angels- (1980-84).

Liz Swanson is an award winning teacher and organizational development facilitator. As an artist, she helps individuals, teams and organizations recognize trends and complex patterns to diffuse negative concepts, communicate with diverse populations and create positive common ground. Published in the areas of conflict resolution and communication skills, she provides training as an alternative to criminal prosecution for the State’s Attorney General Offices.

Together, their determined hope is to promote in their work a provocative, yet generous sense of care, hope and welcoming celebration that channels dialogues between people of diverse backgrounds and identities. Read Less

What an wonderfully astonishing and challenging time to be a teacher! Change is the new normal, as the internet opens to online leaning and classic disciplines are blurring and sifting in visionary ways. As I’ve lived among a range of cultures from the Asia Pacific islands to Central America to Europe, I offer students a unique diversity of perspectives, processes and possibilities.

The complex mysteries that making art offers can awaken breathtakingly variable intersections; from exploring new social concepts to defining emotions, influences and experiences, to experiments with unexpected surprises. Teaching studio practice is a marvelous arena of dreams & intentions, tangents and sometimes confronting ignorance and occasional blind alleys. What matters is in pressing onwards, inwards and outwards, weaving the personal through the universal- in the determined optimism that anything is possible, that there’s always an array of options that can lead to new equations, new ways of seeing.

By working in a broad range of disciplines, concepts and materials, I encourage by example. Everything is connected, informing other disciplines. Students are shown new online developments in architecture, fashion, design, science and idea platforms, such as the TED talks, as they expand our worldviews. Nurturing inspiration generates impassioned vision that drives breakthroughs and builds potential for solid careers. In turn I encourage them to share artists and ideas they discover independently, and am delighted as they, in turn, teach me. At the same time I caution them to look into, but not get caught up in the latest conceptual fashions at the risk of lessening their own unique voices. Question the fame, frame and context. First learn to master the basics with excellence! Intelligent craft defining an edgy idea can create a career.

This path is best served by teaching students to write a list of healthy, balanced life goals broken into short, long and ambitiously wild dreams. Big dreams make us big people. We must grapple with and reach beyond fashionable concepts by building a pragmatic confidence through articulated materials and sound methodology, by reaching into the roots of student motivations and attitudes, and to nurture needs and help heal blind spots.

Knowledge is never enough if we do not also seed it with love, insight and wisdom as to how to live with consistent integrity and clarity. It is all about being real. Many students are looking for direction, validation and meaning in a troubling world and nothing is more intimate and real than discovering that they are capable of making authentic art that faces into the fire of moving past cliches, the surface of issues and offers experiences that influence if not effects social and perceptual change for the better.

My strength is as an equal opportunity encourager. Upbeat, I often get strong work out of troubled or marginalized students, by insuring that that everyone succeeds and has value. I teach a collaborative team spirit that helps all. The aim is to connect with every student in every class, every time.
This fosters confidence in their goals, options and proper time management- to help them shape an objective, multi-faceted adaptable attitude as the kingpin for their success. When they grow certain of what promotes the best in them, they leap beyond their normal limitations in new ways.

What matters most is in nurturing their determination and persistence to succeed, to press on, again and again and especially when a project gets challenging. It is in the final stages that the sparks can ignite into creative fire. Genius is found in the details of excellent craftsmanship. Assessing what that constitutes for each unique student requires considerate insight. Some students need more cheerleading and others are best left alone at times. The bottom line is the work itself. An overly ambitious work that is not complete still warrants an excellent grade as well as the encouragement to finish it.

It’s important that our students develop the habit of pressing through the challenging parts, in the cumulative moments before the breakthroughs- when they are most tempted to stop short. How do I frame that? By allowing as much latitude for change as possible, while remaining true to the spirit of the project. Many students rate my expectations as challenging, but their work and evaluations are proof enough.

While a typical project begin with exploring a range of related artists, then with hands on demonstrations of methods, materials and ideas, I encourage experimentation & thinking beyond such parameters, which is why there is always a healthy range among each class project. They need to personalize each work- to bring it home. The aim is to provide a basic working model, yet teach students how to make independent creative decisions and thus discover their authentic voices. I also make it a point to be available via email on a daily basis, which can be critical on weekends before critiques.

Teaching is a great blessing as well as a challenge- to keep in the flow of world developments. I’m continually seeking to broaden and improve my interests and skills, just as I encourage students to improve their work following every critique. Every work can be improved. We learn from each other. Consequently, I teach an attitude of inquisitive listening and feedback, in order to improve their communication skills. They must print out a statement for each project. Many visual thinkers find that translating their work into language is enormously challenging. I love that sweet spot in the semester when a class critique jump-starts itself into a lively, constructive multi-faceted flow and I can step back to rounding out views, correcting and adding points not articulated.

Consequently I’m always questioning my delivery, re-writing my syllabi every semester, and re-inventing and expanding the complex of my own work. The deep part is to inspire vision by encouraging and guiding by example. Success breeds success. I give openly and honestly of my professional lessons, mess-ups and gains because an empathetic, joyful mentor motivates people to broaden their horizons. Read Less