NEW PALESTINE — Clark Fralick is a veteran art teacher with 25 years of experience, and he loves to teach others to see art the way he does. Now, he’ll get a chance to do so on a larger scale.
Fralick, who teaches at Sugar Creek Elementary School, was named the first recipient of the Edward Maxedon Award for Excellence, Creativity, and Innovation in Art Education by the Eskenazi Art Museum at Indiana University in Bloomington.
The award is named for a longtime curator of the IU museum, who spent three decades exposing young people to art as an educator. This is the first year the Eskenazi Museum has handed out the award to recognize one individual who exemplifies Maxedon’s belief in the value of talking about works of art.
Specifically, the award acknowledges an educator who seeks to inspire students to identify and articulate what they see in an artwork in their own words.
“Things like this don’t happen to me, so I was surprised to learn that I won,” Fralick said. “It’s an honor to have been chosen.”
He believes his approach using the Teaching for Artistic Behavior method was a huge factor in the museum’s decision. The curriculum, called TAB for short, emphasizes student choice in art instruction. In an art classroom, students are treated as artists, and they pick their projects and work through decisions and problems as the work takes shape.
Fralick almost didn’t get the email announcing he’d been selected for the honor, he said. For some reason the email from the organizers of the award wound up in his junk folder, but he lucked out and stumbled across it.
In addition to winning the award, Fralick will serve as a guest educator during the museum’s reopening year, engaging in a variety of educational initiatives, such as leading a workshop; facilitating a gallery talk; and developing a digital resource.
A friend of his who is studying for a doctorate at Indiana University in Bloomington shared the information about the award and suggested Fralick apply.
“I’m not sure the exact process, but I think they read through the applications and had discussions and conversations,” Fralick said.
Fralick earned his art education certificate from the Herron School of Art and received his bachelor of arts in photography from Purdue University. He TAB strategy which underscores the Blocks Paper Scissors Art Camp he teaches along with fellow Southern Hancock teacher Clyde Gaw.
Fralick has presented on TAB at the state and national levels and currently produces the Blocks, Paper, Scissors podcast along with Gaw. He and Gaw are both teaching this summer at the Teaching for Artistic Behavior Institute at the Massachusetts College of Art and Design.
