Immersion Required: An Artist Teacher Living, Teaching, and Studying Art in an Unfamiliar Culture

The purpose of this article is to articulate the rewards of being immersed in a different culture and the significant impact that it can have for art educators. Being immersed in a different culture encourages examination of cultural assumptions and prejudices. Without such an immersion experience, the natural tendency is to project onto others one's own cultural perspective as the correct one--a type of cultural blindness. When the author lived and worked in Ghana, West Africa and Mexico as an artist and art educator, her life became entwined with the lives of the local women artists. She learned about herself as well as the people she was working with. In this article, the author describes how her experiences in Ghana and Oaxaca have enriched her work with students in K-12 schools, and deepened her appreciation of the power of art to be a bridge across cultures.