As a teacher, my goal is to help students develop clarity in their concepts and an understanding of illustration as both a professional practice and a method of inquiry. An important touchstone is illustration’s capacity for worldbuilding: the ability to construct new spaces and possibilities through drawing, where the primary constraint is the relationship between imagining and making.
View all syllabi, Fall 2023–current.
Classroom integration of research
I use creative visualization exercises to encourage students to approach imagination as an active process that supports the development of a personal language. Selected student work was featured in a peer-reviewed presentation in July 2026 at the national ICON13 Illustration Conference. Images © the artists.
Home Is: Illustrating Objects of Memory, 2024/25/26
A cumulative exhibit of more than 50 student illustrations exploring the question ‘What is home?’ through layers of meaning embedded in a single “memory object.” Students practice storytelling within a nonlinear compositional structure. A collaboration with the Queens College Linguistics Department. On long-term public display in Queens Hall. Images © the artists.
Portrait: Person and Place, 2024
Nineteen portraits exploring identity through connections to place, created by undergraduate illustration students. This project asks students to construct a narrative through organized compositional arrangement. Scheduled for long-term public display in Queens Hall. Images © the individual artists.
Cross-disciplinary collaboration
Student Choreography Showcase, 2025/26
Collaboration with Prof. Edisa Weeks (Dance) to integrate Illustration Portfolio students into the Student Choreography Showcase. Students developed posters promoting the individual performances of sonder (2025) and Perceptions (2026), which were exhibited at Goldstein Theatre. Images © the artists.
Collaboration with Maria Pio, co-director of the Godwin–Ternbach Museum, to develop an educational coloring book. Two recent alumni helped establish the visual direction and created sample illustrations. Illustration II and Illustration Portfolio students selected objects from the museum’s collection and created illustrations for inclusion in the final coloring book, published by the museum in Spring 2026. Images © the artists.
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The Bakkhai, 2025
Collaboration with Prof. Meghan Healey (Theatre) to integrate Design students into the Queens College production of The Bakkhai, where they developed in-world political graffiti used onstage as scenic elements and online as promotional materials. Images © the artists.
Theatrical Composition and Gesture for Illustrators, 2023–2024
In-class workshop developed with theatre director Kelly O‘Donnell, designed to connect the language of narrative across disciplines. Featuring actors Imani Pearl Williams and Kelly Letournou.
Fall Dance Concert, 2024
Collaboration with Prof. Edisa Weeks (Dance) to integrate Illustration Portfolio students into "Unfolding: Fall Dance Concert." Students developed posters promoting the individual performances, which were exhibited at Goldstein Theatre. Four illustrations were selected by the Department of Drama, Theatre & Dance as the official posters for the concert. Images © the artists.
Classroom exercises
Active Imagination exercises, 2025
Minneapolis College of Art and Design Continuing Education (MCAD), Spring 2022/Fall 2023
Developed and led a remote, five-week course that introduces creative ideation methods grounded in imagination, memory, and dream. The heart of the approach is a visualization exercise the group practices together during class meetings. In the final week students are encouraged to take steps to develop new work in the creative discipline of their choice.
“Your class was like being in Inception.”—Molly Snee
Cyanotypes with Stencils, 2024/25/26
City Artists Corps grant, 2021
This grant-funded mini-workshop focused on using dream content to develop a catalogue of personally meaningful creative material for use in personal and professional work.