Dr. Bridges served as Coordinator for ArtsNet Minnesota for six years where she coordinated the development of, and wrote curriculum for, this interdisciplinary website as the Walker Art Center, The Minneapolis Institute of Arts, The Frederick R. Weisman Museum, The Minnesota Museum of American Art, teachers and students from around the state of Minnesota contributed their knowledge and expertise. ArtsNet Minnesota was a constituency-based discussion group moderated (600+ members) site (8000+ pages) and the curriculum continues to expand.
Click here to view her programs:
1996 ArtsNetMinnesota
http://www.artsconnected.org/artsnetmn/
2000 Bemidji DLiTE K-8 teacher licensure program http://www.bemidjistate.edu/dlite/
2005 Bemidji FasTrack Secondary http://www.bemidjistate.edu/fastrack
Coming Soon: McGraw-Hill Visual Culture Virtual Community
DLiTE received the "Exceptional Program Award from the Higher Continuing Education Association." in 2004.
Barbara's relationship with teachers, students and schools began in Maine where she started teaching art in 1976. She has worked with teachers, artists and students since that time in Maine, Mexico, the Caribbean, and in Minnesota.
Barbara holds a doctorate in Curriculum and Instruction from the University of Minnesota where she taught and supervised student teachers for 5 years, interacting with over 50 metro area school and teachers. Barbara was named 1998 Minnesota Art Higher Educator of the Year by the Art Educators of Minnesota. Her doctoral research focused on cross-cultural iconography—how cultures see themselves and represent themselves with symbols (sometimes called "art"). As her students will testify, multiple perspectives and their implication on school pedagogy are a primary interest of hers. Allyn and Bacon recently published her Paradigm Deconstruction Charts. Barbara is currently under contract to McGraw-Hill for a teacher’s guide to a textbook called Children's Art Education—Teaching Visual Culture.
Dr. Bridges is also an artist who uses the Modernist themes of rootlessness, lack of identity, solitude and social fragmentation to create a style of historiographic, record keeping , community building artworks with their roots in postmodernism. These assemblages, which she stylistically identifies as "recoradari", focus on a quest for self knowledge through symbolic identification and manipulation of traditional art materials and techniques.
Barbara is committed to “giving back” to the profession by offering student and professional retreats at her Maine beach house once a year. Click here to see :