Your Brain on Art 

Join the PAEA Book Club for conversations about how creativity reduces stress, boosts learning, and strengthens well-being and education.

Many of us have experienced the ways art can help reduce stress and support emotional and physical well-being. However, it can be a challenge for us to prove the value of art when confronted by administrators, and those that discourage students from enrolling in arts classes. Your Brain on Art: How the Arts Transform Us is the book with the scientific support for the value of the arts.

Our hope is that reading this book in community will give us the understanding and language needed to better understand and talk about our value in the educational system.

Session dates: 

November 12, January 14, January 28, February 25

All 4 sessions are held on Thursday evenings from 7:00-8:00 PM

Hosts: 

Marita Fitzpatrick, Sunny Lee Mowery, Elementary Division Director, & Melissa Gallagher, Membership Chair 

Participants will receive a link to join before each session.

Participants will only need to register once and can receive up to 12 hours of Act 48 credit (2 attendance credits per session and 1 credit per session for an optional mini-assignment). Preservice and non-Pennsylvania educators can request a Certificate of Participation, as these educators are not eligible for Act 48 credit.

Book can be purchased through your favorite bookseller.

The Mother Artist

Join the PAEA Book Club for conversations about navigating the realities of making art and raising children.

In her book, that is part memoir, part biography, and part exploration of the visual, literary, and performing arts, Catherine Ricketts poses these important questions:

• Are caregiving and creative labor fundamentally at odds?

• Is it possible for mothers to attend to both?

• Few women artists feature prominently in the history of art, and even fewer who are mothers. How are motherhood and artmaking at play and at odds in the lives of women?

• What can we learn about ambition, limitation, and creativity from women who persist in doing both?

Please join Leigh Dale, Museum Division Director, and friends for a discussion of The Mother Artist by Catherine Ricketts. Ricketts wrote much of the book while working at the Philadelphia Museum of Art, drawing on her experiences in the art world to explore creativity, motherhood, and identity. This book is for everyone, especially mothers, who aspire to make art, or anyone eager to discover the stories of visionary women. It is also for anyone who longs for a revolution of tenderness in what often feels like a brutal and vulnerable world.

Session dates: February 1, February 15, March 8, March 22

All 4 sessions are held on Monday evenings from 7:00-8:00 PM

Hosts: Leigh Dale, Museum Division Director & Melissa Gallagher, Membership Chair 

Participants will receive a link to join before each session.

Participants will only need to register once and can receive up to 12 hours of Act 48 credit (2 attendance credits per session and 1 credit per session for an optional mini-assignment). Preservice and non-Pennsylvania educators can request a Certificate of Participation, as these educators are not eligible for Act 48 credit.

Book can be purchased through your favorite bookseller.