In this blog post series, you’ll learn more about Snow City Arts’ amazing Teaching Artists! Every weekday, our TAs deliver arts education to children and young adults in inpatient and outpatient pediatric units at our partner hospitals. Through in-person and virtual workshops in creative writing, media arts, music, theatre, dance and visual arts, they actively engage young patients, transforming hospital rooms into arts studios.
We are so proud of their amazing, tireless work, and we hope that you get to know more about them in these interviews conducted by our Kellogg Board Fellow, Dana Levin.
Molly Blumberg is an artist based in Chicago. She earned her MFA at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in fiber and material studies, and her BFA in sculpture from Washington University in St. Louis, Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts. Molly has exhibited throughout the United States, including solo shows in Chicago and Boston, and has been collected and commissioned privately. She received a fellowship from the Vermont Studio Center in 2020 and was a visual arts fellow for the city of Somerville in 2017. She currently leads workshops on 2D and 3D visual arts with Snow City Arts students.
Snow City Arts: Is there an art medium you prefer/enjoy working with the most?
Molly: I trained in papermaking and did that for a long time, but now I work in mixed media sculpture.
Who or what are your biggest influences?
From a historical art perspective, I am influenced by the feminist sculptural practices that came out of the 1960s, and artists such as Louise Bourgeois and Eva Hesse, who were part of this period of post-minimalist investment in materiality.
Two of Molly’s sculptures. At left: “Provisional Body (V),” 2020. At right: “Low Hanging Fruit,” 2020.
If you could describe your work in three words, what would they be?
This is hard! But I would say bodily, blobby, and humorous.
What is the hardest part of being an artist?
There are a few things that are tough as an artist. Part of it is that we live in a society that values art but not the artists who make art. I find myself defending the importance of art on a daily basis, because art’s importance is under-looked. The other part is that it’s hard to support yourself as an artist, and it’s tough to have a passion like that.
What have you learned so far working at Snow City Arts?
Because of the setup and the one-on-one working environment, I end up teaching the same projects to different students. What I’ve learned is that there is a breadth of opportunities and outcomes given the same restraint on materials, and I can do the same project with multiple students and each will do it differently. I’ve learned there are nuances in opportunity and the importance of flexibility within a medium.
Paper sculptures made by students in Molly’s workshops. Left to right: “The Little Garden” by Milan, age 17; “Untitled (Staircases)” by Darius, age 21; “Something Like Magical” by Grace, age 14.
What have you learned from the students you’ve taught?
So much, but especially lots of facts! One of my students taught me all about trucks the other day. I’ve also learned that as a teacher, I want to define my role as more of a facilitator, and meet the student on a level playing field. I want to use the resources I have to enable the student to create what they’re envisioning, not just on what the student may be physically able to do, and sometimes that means I’m their studio assistant.
What is your favorite project to work on with your students?
I love to do a tinfoil monoprint where you paint on tinfoil and then press it onto paper to transfer the image. It’s easy to recreate at home, but when you pull off the tinfoil, there is an element of magic and surprise every time.
Painted tinfoil (left) and the resulting monoprint (right): “Random Shapes” by Saige, age 8.
What is your teaching philosophy? or How would you describe your teaching style?
My teaching philosophy hinges on experimentation, play, and joy—even in an environment with constraints, creativity can flourish, and you find yourself invested in the process. I’m a process-driven instructor, but try to explode open the realm of possibility for art. I got into a debate with a student the other day who didn’t believe you could make a sculpture out of socks—I tried to convince them you could!
How do you come up with art projects for your students?
When I meet a new student, I start with base projects as we build a relationship. I start by offering 2D and 3D options and try to think about processes they may not have experienced before. I also consider their range of accessibility, but mostly I just try to experiment and play.
Artworks created by students in Molly’s workshops. From left to right: “Six Pack Abs” by Crystal, age 9; Untitled by Mario, age 7; “Spongebob” by Shiera, age 14.
Want to further support our Teaching Artists and the work they do? Donate to the Katie Kurcz Memorial Fund, which enables our TAs to intentionally reach outside of the hospital environment and across disciplines to pursue learning and collaborative projects that enhance their artistic practice AND impact their work with SCA students.
You can also read all our Teaching Artists’ biographies on our Staff page, or experience one of our TA-hosted virtual Art Parties. Molly will be hosting an Art Party in July — register now!
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