In the spring of 2018, I began the first of many years of delightful collaboration with Highland Middle School (Blackhawk School District, Beaver County) art teacher Leslie Kunkel. Ms. Kunkel had been partnering with Pittsburgh Center for Arts & Media and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts since 2003-2004, so she was already extremely comfortable with and excited for hosting teaching artists in her classroom. The HMS community had great successes with their previous visiting artists, puppet maker Cheryl Capezzuti, ceramicist Becky Keck, and interdisciplinary artist Tom Sarver, so I certainly felt I had some big metaphorical shoes to fill, but also a great working thesis of combining elements and principals of design with novel processes and materials. Tom Sarver had been bringing in tools and scrap wood and cardboard to create installations, so it was also a big help that Ms. Kunkel already had a sense of trust for both me and the students to be safe with potentially dangerous materials!

Ms. Kunkel had saved keys and tags from when the building was re-keyed, so many of our installations incorporated this part of the school history repurposed along with roofing copper, electrical wire, and torch-fired enameling. We first began a large scale hanging installation in the school’s atrium, which we added to over the course of several years, including in our final year of collaborating in 2024. During the pandemic, we designed a virtual project which utilized less tool-oriented materials including pre-cut wood scrap and recycled Venetian blinds, and the following year, we utilized a hybrid approach, which included both virtual and in-person instruction as we used wire, scrap metal, beads, copper tubing, and recycled mattress springs to create an arched installation in the school’s courtyard.

In addition to being an incredible teacher and educator, Ms. Kunkel was a true inspiration in her commitment to community-building and to inclusion. Each year, she would share out our project dates and invite teachers and administrators to stop by and to participate. Not only were other educators demonstrating their support of the arts to students, but they were also having fun creating alongside the students. Ms. Kunkel also regularly invited the students in the PRIDE program, which included Life Skills Support, Autistic Support, and Emotional Support students (depending on their schedules) and their paraprofessionals to the art room to create both personal projects and pieces to add to the installations. My favorite parts were always watching the visiting students surprising themselves in what they were able to accomplish (hammering a name into a piece of copper or holding a torch to melt glass enamel onto a pendant) and in seeing how the art students would help support and guide the visiting students through the different stages of the art processes. I learned so much in collaborating with Ms. Kunkel and I wish her the best in her well-deserved retirement from teaching.