“My experience as a graduate student at UNM positively shaped my life for the better as an artist, educator and human,” said Jennifer Ferriday, a UNM alumni who now works with the University of New Mexico’s Arts-in-Medicine program.
Ferriday’s experience with UNM’s Art Education Graduate Program provides her with an in-depth theoretical and practical knowledge base in her field of study, while giving her the freedom to deeply focus on her personal research interests and visual art production and processes.
“As a graduate student at UNM, I think the part of my experience there that stood out the most is how small and intimate the art education program was,” Ferriday said. “(That) allowed each and every student the opportunity to experience a truly personalized and personal journey toward their individual goals.”
The small nature of the program lends itself to small class sizes and deep relationships between students and professors, as well as peers, she said.
Ferriday has been working for the Arts-in-Medicine program at UNM since 2005, where she facilitates creative encounters, focuses on visual art experiences with patients, family members, medical professionals and the general public in a variety of spaces and places, she said.
“A creative encounter engages people in their own healing process by ‘meeting and joining another; be it person or place, idea, image or sensation; in openness, without judgment or
expectation, intending for and allowing something new to be born,’” Ferriday said. “My work as an artist in medicine opens with the priority of engaging people in their own healing process through the process of creative encounters, but many times, art instruction comes secondarily and intrinsically as participants strive to hone their creative voice.”
The shift from student to faculty member has been quite smooth, she said — she graduated 10 years ago and has been teaching and facilitating ever since.
“In order to further my professional art education experience, I took a leave of absence from Arts-in-Medicine while I spent the following five years teaching the visual arts at a public secondary school,” Ferriday said.
From there, Ferriday turned theory into practice, developing curricula from scratch and teaching courses, including Drawing and Painting I-IV, Advanced Art, Art History, Digital Photography, Video Production and Graphic Design.
Ferriday took a small hiatus from UNM’s Arts-in-Medicine program, where she continued to practice and teach therapeutic art education and art healing practices to her students.
She returned to art, community-based art education and healing in 2012. At this time, she resumed her position in the Arts-in-Medicine program at the University of New Mexico.
Ferriday works with another instructor to teach the course Arts-in-Medicine I, and is currently helping to develop an Arts-in-Medicine certificate program at UNM.
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“Arts-in-Medicine is a very unique and special program,” she said. “There is no way I would find this incredible job anywhere else, especially somewhere as beautiful, inspiring, spiritual and affordable as New Mexico.”
Having a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Painting and Printmaking from Mason Gross School of the Arts at Rutgers University and a Masters in Art Education from UNM, Ferriday said the process of earning these degrees taught her about: art production, aesthetics, art history, art criticism, art education in schools and the community, human growth and development, art therapy and spirituality.
“These areas of knowledge contribute to my work as a professional artist and art educator every single day,” Ferriday said. “Specific skills I can attribute to learning at UNM that have been useful in my job positions include: curriculum development, research methods and methodologies and therapeutic approaches to art education.”
In addition to her work at UNM and UNMH with Arts-in-Medicine, her skills teaching public high school were a direct result of her education at UNM, she said.
During the Fall 2017 semester, in addition to her scheduled shifts at the UNMH Psychiatric Center, the ER waiting room and pediatric dermatology, Ferriday will be providing clinical services to the UNM Pain Center and the Psychiatric Main Hospital.
Ferriday advises UNM students who are concerned about finding work in their field post-graduation to look at real-time, real-life job postings for jobs openings that they would be happy working.
“Look at the required and preferred qualifications and focus your schooling and life around acquiring as many of those as possible,” she said.
Additionally, students should network with others in their field and keep their resume and cover letters updated, so you are aware of any holes that need filling and so they are ready to apply for a job immediately, Ferriday said.
“It’s a competitive world out there, and timing means a lot in the process of landing a job,” she said.
Nichole Harwood is a reporter at the Daily Lobo. She can be contacted at news@dailylobo.com or on Twitter @Nolidoli1.
