Catherine Jacobs teaches Pre-K-5 Art at Riverside and Booth. She has a Master's Degree in Visual Art Education and Elementary Art.  She is looking forward to facilitating the creation of a Mural for Riverside Cafetorium and to finish the Underground Railroad Design Ceiling Tiles in Art Room at Riverside.  Catherine has been the recipient of Various Grants fromthe ARTS of the Southern Finger Lakes.  The thing she likes best about teaching art is that "Every Day is Different and every person you meet has their own story to tell and ability to create."  She became interested in the arts as a young child when she would work with her mother who taught her to work with clay and to draw.  Catherine's mother had studied at Cornell and is now a botanical illustrator. 

According to Catherine,  art education is important for several reasons:

* It enables children to learn to create, problem solve, appreciate, cultivate and express and validate their own artistic abilities.

*  Many of our children are told they are too little to do many things, but in the art room we empower them to create using the same tools, materials and techniques that adult artist use, this empowers them to believe that they too are Artist!

* Having an art experience with an adult professional artist, who encourages them and validates their work as Good or awesome, seals in the child’s mind their value the real artist they already are.

“All children are artists. The problem is how to remain an artist once he grows up.”  -Pablo Picasso