Artist: Tiffany Ellis
Project Title: Outline of City Life
Location: Wheeling & Centennial
Project Statement: Art infuses life into community. Inspiration. Provocation. Ugly, beautiful. It moves us. Traveling around Seattle, Toronto, Thessaloníki, Budapest, Chongqing: art captivates me – not just the institutional, well-mannered statues of remembrance, nor famous, historic landscapes and portraits, but the street-level, impromptu messages scrawled on city walls -some beautiful, others unsightly, but all signs of a living, breathing community of people – composite parts of an interconnected whole. That’s why I want to be a part of this project. To contribute my voice in helping our community find our collective voice. I love the steady hum of small city life: riding the Mitts to work, walking the White River Greenway. An outlined perspective. A permanent memento for others to enjoy. A gesture of gratitude.
Artist Bio: Art is my passion. It’s my first love. In high school, I took every class related to art available to me. Pottery, Painting, Drawing, Introduction to Computers, Graphic Design. I loved it all. I started learning how to use design software, such as Adobe Photoshop, in 2004.
When a new program for Teaching English as a Second language was created my sophomore year of college, I put all of my energy towards pursuing first my bachelors and then my masters in TESOL and Linguistics. I’m immensely grateful for the opportunities and experiences I’ve had in this career path. I’ve taught English on a Fulbright scholarship in the Republic of Macedonia and, for the past three years, I have traveled to China regularly for Ball State University as part of my job responsibilities as a university ESL instructor. Although art has taken a backseat as I’ve pursued my career in TESOL, I have found room to squeeze it into pretty much everything I do. As an educator, I consider myself a designer of learning experiences.
I’ve been teaching English to international students at Ball State for five years; and in light of this milestone, I’ve done a great deal of reflection. In the next five years, I want art to play a bigger part in my life. I’ve joined a creative team at my church and plan to continue in a faculty learning community focused on the relationship between art and critical thinking.