Biography

Dr. Kushins grew up, was educated, and taught high school on the East coast before making her way to the Midwest for doctoral studies in art education at The Ohio State University. In previous faculty positions she taught courses on a range of contemporary issues in art education, supervised pre-service art educators in and around Cincinnati, and introduced elementary classroom teachers to arts-based learning. She has also worked as an educational consultant in a variety of cultural organizations around Columbus including The Columbus Museum of Art, the Dublin Arts Council, The Wexner Center for the Arts, The Little Minyan, and Ohio Wesleyan University.

Jodi’s passions lie in art education outside school walls; in museums, community centers, home studios, gardens, and laundromats. In such endeavors she finds synergy between her interests in socially engaged and participatory creative practices, the artist as public intellectual, and the art educator as community activist. She is also engaged in explorations of artful parenting, the picturebook as art object, and the convergence of contemporary craft and social networking.

Teaching online has had a profound impact on Jodi’s understanding of what it means to work as a scholar in the 21st century. She writes regularly about her discoveries on her professional blog: Art Education Outside the Lines. Additional publications easily accessible online include: Pedagogical Souvenirs: An Art Educators Reflections on Field Trips as Professional Development, Recognizing Artists as Public Intellectuals and I’m Not Really a Chaplain, I Just Play One to Pay the Bills. Jodi serves on the review board for the Journal of Social Theory and Art Education.

Jodi lives in Columbus, OH and practices creative placemaking at Over the Fence Urban Farm. The project has roots in conceptual and activist art and education for social and enivornmental reconstruction. She recently wrote about how the farm relates to her work for Artezein -Art Education in My Backyard: Creative Placemaking on an Urban Farm.

Jodi believes that being an art educator isn’t just a job; it’s a lifestyle which she embraces equally in her work typing Socratic-style questions in response to student work and in leading friends and family in creative activities.