Newton receivers $8,000 Lilly grant (02/26/07)

Leslie Newton plans to renew the artist within.

The Jay School Corporation art teacher was just named one of 120 Indiana teachers to receive an $8,000 2007 Teacher Creativity Fellowship grant from Lilly Endowment Inc.

"This grant will be used to renew the professional artist within the art teacher," Newton said this morning. "To remember that I was an artist before I was a teacher."

Newton has been teaching in the Jay School Corporation for 31 years and also has an art studio in Redkey with fellow Jay County High School art teacher Liz Lawson.

After four attempts applying for the grant, the Hartford City resident is looking forward to attending the Taos School of Art in Taos, N.M.

Newton will be traveling to New Mexico several times between June and October attending three different week-long art classes. During the week-long classes Newton will learn from area and Native American artists, then return to her Redkey studio and paint.

She also said this morning that she plans to take her experiences from the southwest, an area that she loves, to her middle school students and get them to look at what inspires them.

In her elementary school art classes, she will explore how the geography of the southwest forms western culture and art.

She also plans to take her husband and her daughter or sister along on one of the trips.

Newton teaches art at Redkey and Pennville elementary schools and West Jay Middle School. Before teaching art, she worked in the school corporation teaching the gifted and talented program for eight years.

A total of 129 Indiana teachers received fellowships from Lilly Endowment, including nine who were "distinguished fellows" who received up to $25,000. A total of 120 teachers received $8,000 grants.

Since the Teacher Creativity Fellowship program was founded in 1987 by Lilly Endowment, more than 1,800 teachers have received grants.[[In-content Ad]]