About Ms. Held

Ms. Lara Held is a certified New York State Teacher (Permanent) with K-12 accreditation in Art Education. She has been teaching the arts since 1995. Ms. Held considers herself a mix-media artist. She enjoys photography, ceramic sculpture, pottery, installation art, watercolor and acrylic painting, as well as pen and ink drawing.

Ms. Held's teaching career began in 1994 when she volunteered for World Teach, a private non-for-profit, to teach English and Art in Namibia (southern Africa). After 14 months of teaching and traveling, Ms. Held returned to the states to pursue a career in Art Education at the School of Visual Arts in NYC. From 1996-2000 Ms. Held taught Sculpture, Studio Art, and Photography at the High School for Legal Studies in Bushwick, Brooklyn, NY. In addition to her teaching job, Ms. Held served as Arts Coordinator of non-for-profit program, which provided after-school literacy-based visual and theatre arts programming serving over 300 children from the local community.

Flight to NYC to Johannesburg, South Africa (Ms. Held with Nelson Mandela), 1994

Victoria Falls, Zimbabwe

Photographing in Botswana

Ms. Held's Photography Class at The School for Legal Studies in Brooklyn, 1997

The School for Legal Studies, Brooklyn, NY 1996-2000

In the summer of 2000 Ms. Held left her NYC teaching positions to pursue her dream of a solo trip around the world. She traveled to Central America, South America, eastern and southern Africa, and Europe. While in South America Ms. Held volunteered to be part of a 2-week Earthwatch Institute expedition in Chile to help research endangered river otters and their habitats. Earthwatch Institute is an international environmental charity that brings individuals from all walks of life together with world-class scientists to work for the good of the planet.

Guatemala, 2000

Mozambique, 2001

Ms. Held returned to the States in the summer of 2001 and moved to the Hudson Valley to pursue a graduate degree in Art Education at the State University of New York in New Paltz. Here she began to focus her studies on Environmental Art Education. This interdisciplinary field of study allowed her to combine her passion for the environment, activism, and the visual arts. Through her studies she learned how artists, ancient through contemporary, incorporate physical and/or conceptual elements of the natural world into their works of art. In addition she learned how environmental artists use their art to educate and promote positive social and environmental change throughout the world. Ms. Held's graduate thesis, THE RE-ENCHANTMENT OF ART EDUCATION: A SECONDARY ENVIRONMENTAL ART CURRICULUM, was nominated for the Northeastern Association of Graduate Schools' Masters Thesis Award. This curriculum laid the ground work for many of the projects Ms. Held now teaches at Washingtonville High School. Ms. Held graduated Magna Cum Laude from SUNY New Paltz in the winter of 2003 with an Masters of Science in Art Education.

In the fall of 2003 Ms. Held was hired as an Art Teacher at Washingtonville's Middle School and moved over to the High School in the spring of 2004 to teach Sculpture and Studio Art. In 2004-05 Ms. Held taught an after-school Environmental Art Class for High School Students as part of the District's pilot Twilight Program. Students took part in mural painting and a variety of field trips and hands-on environmental art experiences. In the fall of 2005 Ms. Held took over the Clay courses at the High School and has been teaching it ever since. Presently she teaches five sections of Clay.

Twilight Program Mural 2004-2005

Twilight Program Field Trip to the Gates Art Installation in NYC, 2005 

Ms. Held's Sculpture Class field trip to Mohonk Nature Preserve, Spring 2004

Student accepting an award at the Orange County Human Rights Art Exhibit, 2014

Ms. Held and her colleagues, Mrs. Lynch and Ms. Secreto, Senior Banquet 2013

Student work from Ms. Held's Clay Classes

Ms. Held has continued her involvement with Earthwatch Institute. In 2004 she received a Earthwatch Institute Teacher Fellowship to help scientists study leatherback sea turtles in Trinidad. In 2006 she traveled to Belize with thirteen Washingtonville High School students to help scientists conduct research on manatees and bottle-nosed dolphins.

Saving leatherback sea turtles in Trinidad with Earthwatch Institute, Summer 2004

   

Washingtonville High School Earthwatch Expedition to Belize, Summer 2006

    

In the fall of 2017 Ms. Held became the Advisor for the Washingtonville High School Chapter of the National Art Honor Society.  The National Art Honor Society, along with our AIS Teacher, Ms. Constable, organize our annual Empty Bowls WHS Fundraiser. At this event handmade ceramic bowls (made by students, parents, staff, faculty and local artists) are sold in exchange for a meal donated by Washingtonville community members and businesses. The funds raised are donated to the Food Bank of the Hudson Valley in partnership with the Country Kids Food Pantry in Washingtonville. Since 2016 Empty Bowls WHS raised over $12,000 to help families in need.

Ms. Constable and Ms. Held, Empty Bowls WHS Co-Advisors

2016 National Art Honor Society Empty Bowls WHS Committee

Ms. Held has presented her ceramics, sculpture and environmental art education curricula at various local, national, and international conferences and symposiums including the following organizations: The Ashokan Center (Catskills, NY), National Art Education Association (NAEA), New York State Art Teachers Association (NYSATA), SUNY New Paltz Art Education Department, and the Earthwatch Institutue. In 2008, Ms. Held was recognized with the New York State Art Teachers Association's (NYSATA) Region 7 Outstanding Art Educator Award.