Biography
Dr. Virginia K. Freyermuth
Virginia K. Freyermuth is an award-winning artist and art educator who has loved art from the first moment her mother put a pencil in her hand and taught her to draw. Dr. Freyermuth holds Bachelor of Fine Arts and Master of Fine Arts degrees in Painting from Boston University and received her teaching certification through Suffolk University. She earned a Ph.D. in Interdisciplinary Studies with a Concentration in Art Education from The Union Institute & University in Cincinnati, Ohio. She was named the 1994 Massachusetts Teacher of the Year by the Massachusetts Department of Education. She was the 1995 recipient of the National Outstanding Art Teacher Award of Walt Disney's American Teacher Awards. As President of Virginia K. Freyermuth, Inc., Dr. Freyermuth creates award-winning fine art and portraiture, promotes personal and professional growth and learning about and through the arts, and is an avid arts advocate. Her areas of scholarly interest are: art, art education, holistic education, creativity, professional development, and family engagement.
Holistic Educator
As a lifelong educator who promotes a holistic perspective, Dr. Freyermuth has taught all grade levels including pre-school, elementary, middle school, high school, college, and adult over her 33 years as an educator. She is a Founding Fellow of the Teacher Leadership Academy of Massachusetts and is also a recipient of the Massachusetts Art Educator of the Year Award, administered by the Massachusetts Alliance for Arts Education.
After teaching in the public schools of Plymouth and Quincy, Massachusetts, she was the K-12 Art Coordinator of the Duxbury Public Schools in Duxbury, Massachusetts for 14 years. She then worked as a full-time Art Education faculty member at the University of Massachusetts Dartmouth for five years until her retirement from public education in 2004. She has also worked as a Master Teacher of the Connecting Oceans Academy of the ECHO Project, Education Through Cultural and Historical Organizations, a federally mandated educational and cultural enrichment initiative. She teaches adjunct graduate courses at UMass Dartmouth and has also taught at the Rowe Conference Center.
Artist
Dr. Freyermuth maintains a professional art studio where she continually develops works of art in a variety of media. She has received recent awards for her work at the South Shore Art Center, North River Arts Society, and Plymouth Guild. In 2007 / 2008 her work was selected for exhibition at the Massachusetts State House and the Duxbury Art Complex Museum. She was the winner of the 1999 Massachusetts Duck Stamp Competition and her print of this work is in the collection of the Peabody Essex Museum in Salem. Her work is represented in many private collections.
Writer
Dr. Freyermuth co-authored a series of articles based on ongoing research titled The Wonder Full Teacher Project, published in SchoolArts Magazine, with colleague Dr. Peter London. This research explores the dimensions of transformative, holistic teaching. She is also the author of an article entitled "Narratives as Revealing Portraits of Holistic Art Education" which was recently published in the 2007 journal Visual Arts Research: Approaches to Holistic Art Education. She is currently engaged in several new writing projects.
Public Speaker & Consultant
Dr. Freyermuth has given over 180 presentations and keynote addresses nationally and locally on art and education. She presented at the National Art Education Association Annual Convention in Chicago, March, 2006, was the Keynote Speaker for the American Association of Museum Volunteers in April 2006, was the featured keynote at the Cape Cod Museum of Art in January 2007, and has been an invited presenter at UMass Dartmouth in 2008. She has been named to the Marquis Who's Who in the World, Who's Who in America, Who's Who of American Education, and Who's Who of American Women. She has worked as an arts and interdisciplinary curriculum consultant with school systems.