Hello. My name is Jennifer Ruth Hoyden and I am an educator, artist, gallery coordinator, and doctoral candidate in Art and Art Education. I have an M.A. in Cognitive Science in Education with a concentration in creativity, and I enjoy discussing, presenting, and publishing research that expands our understanding of imaginative thinking and experiences.

As an educator, I support students through meaningful explorations guided by their interests, concerns, confusion, and curiosity. I have designed and taught a graduate level research seminar series that builds research literacy around the compelling academic scholarship in and related to the field of Art Education. I am invested in each student’s personal growth as a student, a researcher, an educator, and a person. I have also led art workshops in both the U.S. and abroad for multidisciplinary audiences.

As a doctoral candidate in the Art and Art Education Program at Teachers College, Columbia University, I am investigating my relationship with my artistic medium, fiber and textiles, using a humanistic framework. Creating a self-narrative inquiry that is guided by an internal mixed methods research design, I am engaging in a dialogue with other artists and other paradigms to shape and inform my own reflections and awareness of how my materials serve as conduits for artistic thinking.

For the majority of my time within the doctoral program, I held a Macy fellowship and served as the gallery coordinator in the Macy Art Gallery at Teachers College, where I collaborated with faculty, students, and staff to produce exhibitions featuring student and faculty work, along with special exhibitions for guest artists.

A self-taught textile and fiber artist, my current practice is rug-hooking in the folk-art manner established in the 19th century – an expressive, experimental, functional visual art form. I value the patient nature of the materials which can be interrupted, taken back up, put down, and returned to.