Jennifer Loop decided to become an art teacher because of her own experiences in high school art classes. She found her teachers to be “like magic” in their ability to bring together students from a diverse range of backgrounds.
“There was something for everybody in that classroom, and it’s just different in other classes,” she shares. “I thought it was so awesome that they had created a space for everyone to explore and be creative. As someone who didn’t fit into any other groups, I got to be an art kid. It showed me a spot I could excel in.” She saw her art teachers as examples of “the kind of adults I aspired to be.”
South Salem High School Art Teacher
Jennifer has been teaching at South Salem High School for five years, but has been teaching art for sixteen years. “What I love is being able to be the person to say yes to students and their ideas and their creative whims in ways that other teachers can’t,” she says. She prides herself on having a well-stocked closet of supplies, so when a student asks for an unusual item to help bring their creative vision to life, she can usually find it in that closet.
Many of her students haven’t had art classes before, since elementary schools don’t offer art, and it’s hit-or-miss in middle school. Part of Jennifer’s job is to teach students both the process of art-making and to allow them to explore creatively. In classes that often have 40 students, it means a lot of juggling. She makes it a point to check in with each student during each class to see what they are working on.
Teaching art is central to her existence as an artist. “As far as teaching art, I’m not the kind of art teacher who thinks everyone should be an artist,” Jennifer says. “Everyone should have something that stretches their creativity, problem-solving and hands-on skills. That’s why it feels so good to everybody. They find something they feel that they can do. It creates connections between people.”
Functional Art in Ceramics With Jennifer Loop
Jennifer is a ceramic artist, having become interested in pottery during high school. Ceramics was a competitive class to get into due to its wide interest, so she had to wait until she was a junior to start. Once she started, she realized this was the medium she liked the most. For Jennifer, one of the aspects that speaks to her most is the building aspect, and that ceramics can be functional or lean toward sculpture.
She has also found that working with clay is calming and helps regulate her nervous system. When she’s creating functional pieces, there are specific steps to follow, and she’s able to move through the process, treating it like a guided exercise, paying attention to her body and breath.
Jennifer is able to incorporate ceramics into some of her classes and finds that it’s a meditative process for many of her students. “There’s this meditative and calming quality no matter how you’re working with it, either functional or sculptural,” she says. The mindful teacher observes how it works with her students and often chooses it as a project when they return from a break or have a particularly challenging week.
Always Learning as a Salem Artist
Because she teaches a variety of art techniques at South Salem High School, Jennifer uses the summers to take classes in areas where she is less familiar or less comfortable. In previous summers, she has learned about Risograph printing, bookmaking, and techniques for sculpting faces. During the year, she’s then able to incorporate this new conceptual and technical knowledge into her classes.
The other part of the summer is devoted to her own ceramic work. This summer, Jennifer will be doing a residency at the Chehalem Cultural Center with their ceramics program. For this residency, she plans to step away from the functional work she has done extensively and explore more of the wall pieces she has created in the past. The artist is excited to bring some new surface techniques to these pieces and see what emerges.
In addition to all these aspects of her life as an artist and teacher, Jennifer also creates and sells her functional work at local festivals. Her favorite is the Englewood Forest Festival in Salem, because it’s a one-day neighborhood event blocks from her house. She’s currently planning and making lots of mugs and plates for the early August event, including a lot of new stencils she’s excited about, from clouds to D&D dice designs.
Jennifer believes that we “as humans, we are meant to be making things. I don’t think everyone needs to be an artist. But art is important for everyone. Less and less of our work involves being creative and using our hands. But it’s part of humanity. Even if you’re not the artist, you’re creative problem-solving. It scratches an itch for everybody. We kind of need it. And we have less and less ways of getting it from other areas we might have in the past.” For Jennifer, art is central to her life, and she’s committed to exposing people to its power.
