ILONA STURM

IlonaSturm@yahoo.com
ilonasturm.com
510 290-8176

SUMMARY
Artist-educator and creativity consultant with 25+ years of experience designing and delivering multi-
disciplinary visual and language arts education for adults and children. Liberates creativity through agile
teaching style and advocacy for human potential. Consultant and content lead to school districts, private
organizations, and educators on subjects including habits, curiosity, differentiated learning, and
creativity for professional development. Adept at creating and integrating diverse innovative content
and collaborative teaching methods to emphasize cooperative skills, imagination, written and spoken
expression, language acquisition, interaction, and experimentation. Builds community-based
relationships to strengthen experiential learning and incorporates social justice. Flexible and sensitive
communicator. Exhibiting artist. Fluent in Spanish and Italian.

SKILLS/COMPETENCIES
Curriculum and program development Facilitation and professional development
Content Lead Grant and proposal writing
Multi-disciplinary artist Teaching

EXPERIENCE: SELECTED PROJECTS AND CLIENTS

1992 - Present
Artist-Educator & Creativity Consultant
Self-employed
Partners with clients to develop curricula to meet their needs and educational goals. Writes and
receives grants for development of art curricula. Designs programs with multi-disciplinary art
modalities to support educational goals such as life skills, cognitive functioning, language acquisition,
and art education. Delivers content to adults and youth in classroom and workshop settings. Projects
and clients include:

• Creative Communication, Center for Elders Independence – Developed interactive course

utilizing art, music, dance, news, and storytelling to support and provoke better cognitive
functioning in frail and elderly population. Provided multiple modalities to stimulate and
enhance more fluid communication and promote improved psychological health.
• Creative Literacy, BANANAS Agency, County of Alameda – Presented numerous workshops
for parents, teachers, and caregivers of best practices to enhance early childhood creativity,
literacy, language development, and brain development.
• Creative Practices for Educators and Administrators, Bureau of Jewish Education, Oakland
Unified School District – Offered professional development trainings to support generating
creativity in teaching practice and familiarity with art materials and methods.
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• Visual Art and Language, City of Oakland – Received funding to implement a grant offering art
classes to emerging English learners. Created the ‘Education through Art’ program as a vehicle
for creative language acquisition.
• Art and Ancient Cultures, Buena Vista Elementary, Oakland - Created diverse art curricula to
supplement 6th grade core units.
• Creative Literacy workshops, Berkeley Public Library – Artist-in-residence and designer of arts
workshops studying world alphabets, pictographs, ideograms, and library resources.
• Watershed Art Project, Fruitvale Elementary, Oakland - Recipient of Alameda County Clean
Water Act Grant to create and teach class combining local creek ecology with human biology.
• Street Photography: Youth Explore their Environment, Delta College, Stockton - Recipient of
grant from City of Stockton Art Endowment Fund to design and teach photography class.
• Who am I? Midrasha, Kol Hadash Programs -- Artist-in-residence, curricula designer, and
instructor for experiential Jewish learning programs.
• Art for the Developing Child and Education through Art - Program Creator, art specialist, and
curricula developer to enhance public education K-12, Oakland and Berkeley school districts.
• Art Specialist, Instructed underserved college-bound youth and offered portfolio support.
• Pastel Class, Guest Artist-Educator, Montessori School, Athens, Greece.

Adult Education Instructor 2008- Present

Berkeley Adult School: Life-Long-Learning Program (BAS)
Develops agile curricula for Spanish language courses catering to adult learners and their experience.
Teaches Spanish conversation through cinema, field trips, and guest speakers (e.g. ACLU)
incorporating culture and current events. Expanded Spanish program from 1 to 3 sections. Offered
additional workshops:
• Liberating your Creativity: Arts Workshop offered to Community Education program
• Habits, Creativity, and the Brain, Presentation for Life-long Learning Program
• Paint your Heart Out, Arts Workshop, Community Education Program

Visual Artist 1988 - Present

Maintains active studio art practice. Exhibits in solo and group exhibitions. Participates in national and
international artist-in-residences. Creates conceptually-based site specific installations for museums
and galleries. Produces short art and documentary film projects.

Education

M.A. San Francisco State University Creativity and Art Education

Thesis: Generating Creativity: A Unified Approach to Early Childhood Education.
B.F.A. Massachusetts College of Art Painting and Photography
B.A. University of Massachusetts Women’s Studies Cum Laude
Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture Summer Residency Program
Universidad Nacional Autonomo de Mexico Spanish and Anthropology

Dates for education section???

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