CRITICAL SKILLS

Kim Parko, IAIA Faculty.

Biography:

Kim Parko was born and raised in Atlanta, Georgia. She graduated from the Savannah College of Art and Design where she majored in painting. She went on to receive teaching certification from Georgia State University while working in inner city Atlanta schools. She served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Kenya, East Africa for two years, teaching at a school for the deaf and working on secondary projects that promoted art education for students with disabilities in Western Kenya. She organized the first art exhibition for students with disabilities who lived in the provinces of Western Kenya. She also learned Kiswahili and Kenyan Sign Language, but has since forgotten both. She has had the opportunity to travel to Uganda, Ethiopia, Zanzibar, India, Western Europe, and Canada. She has spent time in airports in the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Bahrain, and Yemen. After returning from Kenya, she spent many months readjusting to the cereal isle in American grocery stores. She then taught in an early intervention program in Atlanta. After moving to New Mexico, she was an art instructor in Albuquerque, and a public school teacher in Santa Fe. She paints, draws, prints, sculpts, writes, and uses an inordinate amount of glue. She has been represented by galleries in Atlanta, Boulder, and Tulsa and has shown work in Savannah, Atlanta, Boulder, Tulsa, Albuquerque, and Santa Fe. She is also a writer and has had work published in a few journals here and there. She is currently a MFA candidate in creative writing at Bennington College.

Education:

Bennington College, MFA candidate, creative writing
Georgia State University, teaching certification
Savannah College of Art and Design, BFA, painting

Teaching Statement:

As a teacher and an artist, I strive to break down boundaries between disciplines, between exploration and introspection, between classroom and world, and undo the stereotypical role-playing between teacher and learner, and then bind art to all of it.