From wanting to be the rainbow mascot at the University of Hawaii to becoming an art teacher at GlenOak with a little nudge of encouragement, art teacher Jill Balderson shares her fun facts on how she became a teacher and what she does as an art teacher.

As a student, Balderson had a different opinion on how her art looked, but her teacher made her think again.

“My teacher wanted me to take all the notes that I could. I didn’t think I was that good at art. But she told me I was,” Balderson said.

With that push of encouragement from her college professor, Balderson took her portfolio with her and ended up at the University of Mount Union, where she majored in art education. She learned how different artists’ art styles looked from each other and found her favorite art form.

“My favorite genre of art is probably Baroque art. I love Tenebrism and Chiaroscuro. It’s a method that they use with light and shadow,” Balderson said.

Balderson found out her love for figure drawing and specifically with drawings of dancers. It is a project she enjoys having her classes do today as members of the dance class come in a pose for art students.

She likes how her students get tension from figure drawing, and how they can use art to express themselves. She takes her art inspiration from the famous artist Richard Debancorn.

“I really love Richard DeBancorn’s abstract expressions and pieces. They’re based on ocean landscapes,” Balderson said.

Balderson wanted to do a project on Richard Debancorn; it was on one of his weeklys. She found interest in how he reduced things to their simplest form based on color and air.

Balderson explains as a kid, she didn’t see herself as an art teacher.

“I wanted to be a veterinarian and, at one time a news reporter, and then I wanted to get as far away from home as possible, so I wanted to be a rainbow at the University of Hawaii. It’s their mascot,” Balderson said.

Balderson is not from here; GlenOak is two and a half hours away from where she grew up. She felt stuck at home and wanted space. She thought that the job at GlenOak was a perfect amount of time away from home and loved the job description so she decided to become a teacher at GlenOak for art. But when Balderson started teaching she found it nerve-racking.

“I was an infant when I started teaching. I was 22; for the first probably five years of my teaching career I lied to every student about my age. I told them I was 29, I felt like that was still believable,” Balderson said.

When she first started she had mostly 9th graders because of the career center and they would send over 10th, 11th and 12th graders if their campuses’ classes were full. It was hard because Balderson was only two to four years older than her students. Balderson took the challenge, knowing how much art teaches students to improve and grow.

“I love that there’s never one road answer, there’re multiple pathways to creating a piece of art and I like that singularity it requires that shows and that it takes an idea to see it throughout the answer,” Balderson said.

Balderson sees how tough you have to be as an artist. Ready to take any risk and to have thick skin because responses from people can be anything. She thinks outside the box for her assignments and found one to be really helpful and inspiring for junior students who are in Honors or IB.

“I love assigning the summer work for my juniors who take Honors 3 or IB Visual 1. This ‘assignment’ is called new for you! Students have to select an art media they have never heard of or never used before and fully research and experiment with it before putting it into action,” Balderson said.

Balderson loves giving students this assignment because she doesn’t get to see what they are putting into the art until the first day of school making it more entertaining to grade and see how her class is and it brings classmates together from just an art piece.

Every year there are always new kids who impress her, making it fun every year she’s here at GlenOak.

“Kids surprise me every year. That’s what makes teaching fun. It would be too boring to have the same type of student every year. I am really grateful for my current rosters of students. They are some of the best individuals and artists I’ve had in my career.” Balderson said.