With the departure of Mrs. Maples, who taught at FHN for many years and introduced the printmaking class to FHN, the other art teachers had big shoes to fill. Kimberly Skwira is carrying on printmaking for the next generation of FHN students.
“I didn’t know much about printmaking frankly,” Skwira said. “Obviously, as I’ve been transparent in class, I’m still learning. I volunteered to take it because I feel like this is my 20th, maybe 21st, year in education, and you get really sort of stagnant. So it’s time to learn something new.”
This class is a chance to try new things and create new opportunities for the students, considering the small class size. With that in mind it is also a chance for Mrs. Skwira to learn and grow in terms of teaching printmaking and seeing how things work.
“Overall, it’s gonna challenge my thinking and pacing of the curriculum, and the semester and figuring out what works, what doesn’t work, what are the kids like,” Skwira said. “I think I’m pretty fortunate that it’s a small class. Everybody seems pretty great and chill and like, we’re gonna go with the flow. We’re in it together.”
Mrs. Skwira is very positive about this class and her ability to teach printmaking, even though it was a little unexpected for her to take on this class.
“I like how optimistic she is, and she’s very outgoing,” junior Ryleigh Smith said.
She has some things she is looking forward to for this year and wishes to set a new way of what people think about printmaking and how it looks, and has hopes of new things she can try this year with her class. One of Skwira’s wants is to help build up the printmaking class and to show kids that you can enjoy it and have fun.
“I’m actually really excited about the whole thing in general,” Skwira said. “I’m really looking forward to setting a new standard of what I think printmaking should look like, instead of what it has been. I want it to become a class where it’s multiple sections, like painting. I want it to be able to grow. I’m really excited for us to be able to tie-dye aprons and to be able to display those for other kids to be like, ‘oh, cool. If we take printmaking, we get to do this.’”
