Diana Atwood McCutcheon
Lubbock, TX
I am a mixed media artist working in Visual Ethnographic research. My interests are anthropology, memory, sense of place, genealogy, and entanglements.
MessageArt has been my passion since childhood, and teaching has been my chosen career in adulthood. My first degree from Baylor University was in art and education. I married halfway through this degree, and moved from Texas to Virginia, but upon return to Texas, worked my way through finishing my Education/Art degree while living in Waco. After moving to East Texas in 1988, I opened a private art studio using my own art curriculum and taught students from Pre-k through High School. I was a founding member of the Upshur County Arts Council and exhibited with this group. I began my public teaching career in Gilmer, Texas and worked towards obtaining my All-Level Art Certification. After a move to Quitman, Texas, I continued teaching art in my private studio, substitute taught in the Quitman ISD schools, and began my second bachelor’s degree in Design Communications at Texas A&M Commerce. I exhibited with the Dallas Society of Visual Communications winning a place in Illustration in the Student division. In 1998, I led a team of student designers in a Dallas area Graphic Design logo competition, and our team won. The logo was for the Dallas Center for Non-Profit Management, and I was the team liaison for communication with the nonprofit organization. I worked as a Jr. Art Director intern summer 2000 for the Pepsi National Field, TLP Advertising Agency in Dallas. In 2007, our family moved to Central Texas, and I began an AP Studio Art program at West High School and offered four AP subjects for ten years. My students had the opportunity to work with internationally known artist Patrick Dougherty, on the River Vessels project in conjunction with Waco’s art initiative. As a working artist in the Waco area, I exhibited with the CAST Gallery, the Texas Fine Artists Cooperative, ECVA International online exhibits, Art as Worship annual exhibit, Waco Art Teachers’ Exhibit, and the Art on Elm Street Exhibit and Event held each spring. I was involved in the Waco arts community and served on the Doris Miller Committee tasked with choosing the Sculptor and Park Design winner. International experiences include attending a teacher/leader conference in Paris and leading an educational trip to Europe. My MAE experience at TTU gave opportunity for travel to Elsewhere Studios in Paonia, Colorado, and to the Chianti Foundation in Marfa, Texas. I have made two trips to Scotland of my own initiative. One for photography purposes, and the most recent trip in 2018 dovetailed with my project thesis research on Genetic Memory and Identity. My first scholarly article, “Genetic Memory and Identity” was published in the 2020 issue of Trends, the Journal of the Texas Art Educators Association.
On a personal note, I have been a single parent since 2009 following a divorce and have overcome many difficulties and hardships. My son Michael was diagnosed with Autism at age three, and now attends the Transition Academy at the TTU Burkhart Center for Autism and Research. He will graduate from Burkhart at the end of June. He has grown into a beautiful young man, and my life is so blessed to have him with me here in Lubbock. We have been very involved in the special needs communities of Waco and now Lubbock. My daughter Jennifer lives in Waco but lived with me and my son until he and I moved to Lubbock in 2020 for me to pursue the doctoral program. Jennifer graduated with a Bachelor of Psychology degree with honors from Tarleton State. She enjoys painting, music and helping others through her career. My daughter Marianna Hampton is married to Coleman Hampton. Marianna is a professor in Communication Studies at McLennan Community College in Waco, and Coleman is the Director of the Bell County Museum. They have given me my precious 3 year old granddaughter, Evie Grace, who is a joy and delight.
The most challenging situation I experienced as a teacher in public high school was when the town of West, Texas experienced the explosion from the fertilizer plant. I grieved with this community on the many losses of life and homes, continued teaching in a makeshift portable campus for three years and then did my part to help rebuild the community by contributing to the design of the art department and studio for the new high school. I share these personal challenges because these situations caused me to reassess my life, my goals, and to do some serious inner personal work. This personal and spiritual journey led me to the amazing MAE program at Texas Tech University and subsequently to the PhD program in Fine Arts. Since becoming a doctoral student in the Fine Arts program at TTU, I have served on the Committee for Equity through Engaged Education and the student subcommittee Student Voices. I currently serve on the JT and Margaret Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts Diversity and Equity Committee. Our Student Voices subcommittee received two Micro Grants for Arts in Action from the J.T. and Margaret Talkington College of Visual and Performing Arts which allowed us to provide student discussion sessions with working professional artists as an add on to the Race and Social Justice Artist series Spring 2021. I was a presenter at a recruitment seminar in October 2020 for the School of Art and was certified as a T-Tess Field Supervisor for Teaching candidates. I also served as a student moderator for the School of Art Asian American and Pacific Islanders Forum Spring 2021. I have conducted presentations at the Texas Art Educator’s Association and most recently at the National Art Educator’s Conference of 2022. My TA/GPTI assignments for Fall 2022 included continuation of mentorship with Dr. Kevin Chua for Art History Survey 2, and a GPTI assignment for the 4000 Art Education Student Teaching Practicum and Symposium. Aside from teaching the symposium weekly, I served as the T-TESS Field Supervisor for student art educators. This spring semester my GPTI work is as the Instructor of Record for the 4000 Art Education Practicum/Symposium again and am teaching Art History Survey II. Graduation goals for the PhD in Fine Arts program are to earn a Women and Gender Studies Certificate, and earn18 Graduate hours in the field of Ethnography/Anthropology. My goal is to become a professor in a University/Research setting or a small liberal arts college in Art Education. I recently passed my Final Qualifying Exams and am working on my Dissertation Proposal this semester. I will begin Visual Ethnographic research this summer in San Antonio, Texas.
Statement
My research interests include anthropology, ethnography, ancient and sacred sites, the feminine in mythology, feminism, sense of place, place memory, indigenous consciousness, quantum physics, new materialisms and speculative fabulations. Methodologies interests include ethnography, autoethnography, alternative ethnography, and arts-based research.
In a recent Anthropology class with Dr. Michael Jordan, I worked on a data base for the Apache Tribe of Oklahoma, and the Washita Battlefield National Park project. This research project included documentation of animals and plants used traditionally and currently by the tribe. The aim of this federal project is to provide a means of documentation that will support the tribe’s application to use these animal and plant materials located at Washita. As I conducted the work on this research project through books and interviews associated with this tribe, I learned much of the Native American traditional practices, lifeways, cultural belief systems, and mythology. This experience was helpful to me on several levels. It correlated with my own research interests and provided a knowledge base that will aid me in future research and arts-based projects.
I will commence Visual Ethnography research beginning this summer in San Antonio, Texas with the Basque Community. Research has been conducted on more recent Basque immigrants in Nevada, Utah, and Montana, but not much research has been conducted with the Basque Community in San Antonio. Basque immigrants were in the San Antonio area and in Northeast Mexico prior to the Alamo and have made significant contributions to San Antonio and to Texas. Some members of this Basque community descend from the eras of Columbus and North American Colonization. Communities of Basques migrated together and integrated with the Coahuiltecan Native Americans. There are many complexities to explore both from the past, the contemporary, and concerning speculative fabulations. This Visual Ethnography fieldwork will include quantitative as well as qualitative research, along with arts-based inquiry. One of the outcomes of the project (aside from the written dissertation) will be conducting arts workshops with the community reflecting aspects of collective memory and sense of place. New Materialisms, feminism, sense of place, memory and identity are the theoretical lens that will be important to the research project.
From an Art Education perspective, this research can further understandings on identity, sense of place, sense of rootedness, and acknowledge the many cultures and backgrounds of students. For students who have experienced displacement, or identity crises, a curriculum that emphasizes these concepts can aid students in creating or recreating their own identities. My stance as an art educator is that art education should not only teach the skills, concepts, and theories of art, but provide a safe place for teachers and students to experience art as a path to well-being and individual confidence.
DAM Fine Art
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