Amanda N. Simons (b. 1984, Flint Michigan, USA) is a visual artist, writer, educator, and safety advocate whose interdisciplinary art practice currently explores the intersections of queer identity, and experience-based learning.
FOSTERING SAFER SPACES FOR MAKING
Over the last decade, I have developed a number of strategies for creating more accessible and accommodating studio experiences for my students, and I am always eager to teach these strategies to other educators and program directors.
Universal design principles and universal design for learning strategies are central to welcoming more and different people into our shops and classrooms. I have developed a number of trainings for faculty and staff focused on inclusive, consent-based language, and design inquiry strategies that can increase student engagement and sense of belonging in the classroom. By working directly with under-served students, using a framework and language that supports their needs, you can integrate accommodations into the classroom and create an environment that better supports everyone.
I have taught equity strategies to educators both nationally and internationally through a number of conferences, workshops, and direct consulting opportunities. Past and current collaborators include Institute for Applied Tinkering, Student Shop Managers Consortium, Torched AVL, Smith College, and Maine College of Art and Design.
Interested in collaborating? Please reach out.
MAKING AND TEACHING PRACTICE
I have a deep interest in my body’s relationship to the physical world.
As a neurodiverse, chronically-ill, queer individual, my body is often a site of conflict. I am constantly asking myself, “how have I been taught to act, or life, or move? And what happens when I push against that?” My interdisciplinary art practice is a record of this push, and takes the form of many things: paintings, print, sculpture, personal narrative, video, performance and social practice.
I am currently deep in: my woodturning practice, painting plywood, and queering my home with handmade furniture.
My teaching practice is an inseparable extension of my art practice. I view my direct work with students as not only social advocacy, but as a long term, ongoing social practice project that helps express a facet of my art that still sculpture simply cannot.
For the last decade, I’ve been teaching folks age 5 to 85 how to use dangerous tools and make interesting things safely, both physically and emotionally. I focus my work on the LGBTQIA+ community, neurodivergent students, the disabled community, folks with physical differences, English Language Learners, and underserved populations pursuing skills in typically exclusive fields like woodworking and metalworking.
FIND MY WORK IN REAL LIFE
Torched AVL Gallery
1056 Haywood Rd, Suites A+B
Asheville, NC, 28806
torchedavl.com
Asheville Art Museum Store
2 South Pack Square
Asheville, NC 28801
ashevilleart.org