Erin Tiedeman Encourages Community-Building Through Art
An outstanding educator and National Art Honor Society (NAHS) sponsor, Visual Arts Instructor and Visual and Performing Arts Department Head Erin Tiedeman goes above and beyond, striving to make the arts more visible in the community of Greensburg, Pennsylvania through innovative curricula. Her students are learning to create “community-building through art.”
We had the pleasure of meeting Tiedeman in her Greensburg Central Catholic Junior-Senior High School Graphic Design and AP Art & Design classroom. All of her AP Art & Design students are also members of NAHS, an organization whose mission is to recognize high school students for their dedication to the arts, and one in which we support through special scholarship opportunities.
Merging what they’re learning in the classroom with outside sources of creative inspiration, Tiedeman’s students investigate artists and the impact of their art on their community, and strategically plan out art projects.
One such source of inspiration is contemporary artist Oliver Herring who created TASK, an improvisational event where all participants agree to first, write down a task on a piece of paper and add it to the collection of tasks, and second, pull another task and interpret it; once complete, they start the process again. TASK is continuous and allows opportunities for a group of people to interact and communicate in a way that is accessible to everyone.
Inspired by Herring, Tiedeman’s high school students created a TASK party for their fellow junior high school students to encourage open communication between each other as a school community.
Greensburg Central Catholic students have also participated in not one or two, but multiple community outreach art projects in Greensburg, Pennsylvania—everything from face painting at several charity events, including Autism Speaks Walk, Foster Day Picnic, Adoption Day Party, and elementary school carnivals, to crocheting mats for the local homeless shelter, sewing blankets for the animal rescue center, and donating art boxes to the local Children’s Bureau.
A board member of the Geyer Performing Arts Center in neighboring Scottsdale, Pennsylvania, Tiedeman has brought together both the performing and visual arts with new student-painted murals on the performing arts center. Creating not only art, but building critical communication skills, students work as a team to beautify their community and bring attention to all of the arts with this mural project and another.
Tiedeman is building future leaders by encouraging students to take ownership of their creative endeavors and mentor younger students on mural projects at their elementary school, Aquinas Academy.
Tiedeman is so proud to support her students as they grow as artists and as a part of their community, observing that, “The kids are excited and really enjoy doing these things for their community – we are building future leaders.”
