About

My name is Kathleen and I am Ms Artastic. I am a teacher in Canada and I strongly believe in allowing students the opportunity to be creative, explore and experiment, and make mistakes. I also have two cats who are named Russel and Audrey. As Ms Artastic, I design art resources, projects, and curriculum for teachers from kindergarten to grade twelve, as well as apparel for art teachers through Ms Artastic’s Apparel.

I began my journey out of high school in 2007 at Emily Carr University of Art and Design. I didn’t know what I wanted to do with my life (who does when you’re 17). There, I learned about Visual Art, and concentrated in ceramic and sculpture art. In 2011, I graduated with a Bachelor of Art, Major in Visual Arts. I then attended Simon Fraser University where I obtained my Bachelor of Education, Secondary Minor. Yes! I began my teaching career as a secondary art teacher. I love teaching art in secondary. At the time, there were few jobs in secondary for art teachers and I spent 5 years as a teacher-teaching-on-call (sub). I did a few job shares and got into the elementary world. Now, I teach elementary and art to some amazing kids. This experience has allowed me to teach art to students from kindergarten to grade 12.

I am also a professional artist. I go by the name Kathleen McGiveron. I create low brow ceramic sculptures that are creepy and cute. I frequently show my art in British Columbia, Canada, in both commercial and public galleries. As I have written in my artist statement, “I am an artist who works with clay to produce creepy but cute sculptures. My lowbrow, kitsch work is influenced by ceramic figurines and often either has a connection to myself or popular culture. Through both genres of kitsch and lowbrow, I can play with the concepts of embellishment, sentimentality, and humour which can range from cheerful to sarcastic. Each series I do is different from the previous and includes figurines which are rebellious, bizarre, and explore topics which are influenced by my passions or movements in contemporary culture which I feel I need to reflect.”.

As Ms Artastic, I continue to create seasonal art projects and resources for kids. I am looking to expand to creating general or themed art projects with an “all-year” focus, as well as create more sketchbook resources. Once my new studio is set up, I will be creating art resources for ceramics first, and then papier mache. I know that there is a big need for these resources and I do have a lot of knowledge in these areas.

Another goal of mine is to write and illustrate picture books for kids with the theme of art in mind, that will help students be more confident in creating art. I am still playing with ideas, and ultimately wish there was more time in a day to do all the things I’d love to do. These picture books will most likely be self-published at first on both TeacherPayTeachers.com and Amazon (for printable options for teachers), and then I may perhaps pursue publishing.

For now, I shall continue to publish and create art projects for kids on my TeachersPayTeachers store.

Yours truly,
Ms Artastic