Meet Keri Jhaveri | Art Educator & Program Manager

We had the good fortune of connecting with Keri Jhaveri and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Keri, what led you to pursuing a creative path professionally?
I’ve been in love with visual art as long as I can remember. One of my earliest memories is falling in love with Hieronymus Bosch’s triptych The Garden of Earthly Delights, the intricacy, symbolism, and magic of that painting still fascinates me. My mom is an artist, and I grew up paging through her art history books and going to art museums. I experimented with being an artist myself, taking photography and core art classes as a college student, but deciding to pursue an MA in art history felt like the right path for me. I focused on museum studies and brought my love of art history and education together in my work as a museum educator. I believe that making art connects us to each other, our shared experiences, as well as our history and our humanity. Now I work at the nonprofit Arts Education Connection San Diego. I’m lucky enough to collaborate with teaching artists and other arts educators to create experiences for our community to make art, share their stories and celebrate their creativity. It’s pretty amazing to see how making art through dance, music, theater, visual and literary arts can change students’ lives, providing them opportunities to tap into their creativity, navigate challenges, and honor their personal narratives through self-expression and a new way of communicating.

Alright, so let’s move onto what keeps you busy professionally?
My pathway in the arts wasn’t the most traditional. I’ve always been interested in visual art but didn’t think I was cut out to be an artist. I love looking at art, deconstructing what I see, and connecting it back to history and the artist and circumstances that produced the work. I took a long time to get through school and wound-up pairing visual art and education. I earned an MA in art history from the University of Texas at Austin, as well a primary teaching certificate from the Association Montessori Internationale. I’ve worked in various educational capacities in non-profits and art museums including the Frist Art Museum in Nashville, TN, the J. Paul Getty Museum in Los Angeles, and the Palm Spring Art Museum. Throughout my career, I’ve specialized in collaborating with teaching artists, educators, and community partners to design and implement projects ranging from youth and family programs, a video art making lab for youth, collaborative poetry writing, art activism for community awareness projects, and multi-generational celebrations of culture and history. In addition to my work as an educator, I have a long-standing side project collaborating to create short form documentary films about artists and their processes with my husband. In my current job I manage professional learning opportunities for classroom teachers, school administrators, and teaching artists. I also manage our Arts Intervention programs with Juvenile Court and Community Schools, creating opportunities for youth to explore the arts as a career pathway and means to storytelling, personal expression, and self-reflection. I know how important it was to me growing up that I could rely on art making to tell my story and be the lens for how I perceived the world. I want my work to offer the same opportunities to all young people. I think what sets me apart from others is my deep and abiding belief in the power of collaboration. I couldn’t do my work alone, my colleagues and the teaching artists I work with make the programs I manage complete. I love recognizing other people’s skills and talents and finding ways to incorporate what they love to do into the bigger project. True collaboration takes time, but it’s so worth it to see the deep investment and dedication that happens when a partner can bring their whole heart to a project. I enjoy being a catalyst: getting the right people and talents into the room, finding ways to remove obstacles, and then seeing what grows out of it.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
The perfect day would start with chicken mole enchiladas from El Borrego in City Heights. We would spend time in Balboa Park at the Mingei International Museum, super fun if we could join a family program and make some art. We’d take a yoga class at Pilgrimage of the Heart in Normal Heights. There would be a long walk at sunset at Surfer’s Cove in Pacific Beach, and I’d finish the day with dinner at Izakaya Masa in Mission Hills. Finally, a visit to North Park for a waffle cone of deliciousness from An’s Dry Cleaning.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I’ve been fortunate to have some amazing mentors in my life: my mother, who introduced me to creativity and looking at art, my first college professor Pam Reed who helped me see myself as a scholar and an art historian, and my first museum education supervisor Elliott Kai Kee who encouraged me to experiment with my teaching practice and how I collaborate with others. I’m also grateful to my husband Brian McHugh, who is my favorite partner to collaborate with. Our work on short form documentary films has been a fun adventure, and I’m always learning from him how to see the world in new ways.

Website: https://www.artsedsd.org/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/artsedsd/

Linkedin: linkedin.com/in/keri-jhaveri

Twitter: https://twitter.com/artsedsd

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/artsedsd

Image Credits
Image 1, Art Works Fellow signs their print, photo by Ale Uzarraga Photography Image 2, Art Works Fellow share their finished print, photo by Ale Uzarraga Photography Image 3, Art Works Fellowship Student Exhibition 2021-2022 at The Front Gallery, photo by Jeff Valenzuela Photography