Keynote Speaker Felice Amato

2016 Art Education Conference

Performing Stories: Explore the possibilities of narrative pedagogy to engage, lead and transform the classroom experience

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2016
8:00 – 4:00, Schaeffer Auditorium 
The 78" Annual Kutztown University Art Education Conference

Keynote Speaker  Felice Amato
Felice Amato headshot
Felice Amato in her workshop, crafting bone-shaped props under a bright desk lamp, which provides the only light in the room

Felice Amato, our "Sense Maker" of the Conference from University of Wisconsin specializing in performance and art. Felice Amato is a PhD candidate at the University of Wisconsin-Madison in a self-designed, practice-based program that merges research and making. After teaching Spanish and art in the public schools for 20 years, Amato went back to school to pursue an MFA. Starting in ceramics, a lifetime love of puppetry finally lured her across the barrier between spectator and participant and between object maker and object performer.

Devoted to the figure and to story, puppetry has become the ultimate medium for her collaged narratives that combine autobiography, folklore, and myth in an attempt to make sense and fun of motherhood, love, desire and loss. An experienced and devoted teacher, Amato has found that engaging with others in the creative process is a crucial part of her own practice and that typing endnotes with hot glue blisters on one’s fingers is a pretty interesting place to be.

Three pairs of hands gripping a scarecrow doll in the dark
A pair of hands positioning pieces of a papier-mâché doll on a bed of hay
Three pairs of hands moving a female scarecrow puppet
A sculpture that consists of a red face connected to a hand broom that is sweeping up charcoal-colored powder
Abstract sculpture that looks like a bovine creature with stick legs and a muddled face