Christine French is a retired art teacher from Ohio. She has taught art classes at the Cleveland Museum of Art, the Cleveland Institute of Art, Erie Art Museum, Cuyahoga Community College, Art House, and Notre Dame College. Some of her teaching awards are TICA, at the Art Institute of Chicago, Power of Art: A Day with Robert Rausenberg in Washington DC, five Martha Holden Jennings Foundation Grants, Ashland Oil Teacher Achievement Award, three Ohio Arts Summer Media Fellowships, and the Northeast Regional Ohio Arts Education Association Outstanding Teacher. A graduate of Kent State University with a BFA in Fine Arts and Art Education, Chris also holds M.A. in Crafts, and a M.F.A. in Sculpture from Kent State Graduate School. Besides teaching, Chris has been a producing artist for 20 years. In 2004 she was honored with a sculpture award by the Women’s Pen and Brush in New York City. In 2005, HGTV’s Crafters Coast to Coast featured her sculptural baskets called “Vessels with Attitude”. In 2007 she was in the Nov/Dec issue of Fiber Arts Magazine. In 2008 she was featured in the Focus: Fiber Book by the Cleveland Museum of Art, and was published in Beyond Basketry 2008. She has been an artist resident in Poland, Hungary, Greece, the Big Island of Hawaii, and the Art Institute of Chicago’s Oxbow. Chris considers herself a multimedia artist. The variety of art processes that she utilizes in her work are watercolors, encaustics, basket making, collage, dichroic glass, polymer clay and fiber jewelry, glass collage, ceramics, sculpture, photography, new media, and illustration. Locally in North East you can see her work at Courtyard Wineries and the gift shop of Presque Isle Winery Since moving to North East she is an active board member of the North East Arts Council where she teaches children in art club and watercolors and jewelry making to adults. She also teaches jewelry making techniques at the Chautauqua Institution and Imagine in Bemus Point, New York. She is on the Design Committee of the Downtown North East where she designed the grape banners in town. Soon she will be helping artist, Tom Ferraro, paint the recent mural in North East.

For the North East Arts Council I teach children in kids club, girl scouts, and adult watercolor, drawing, and jewelry classes. For the Chautauqua Institution and Imagine in Bemus Point, New York I teach jewelry classes. Please check out my web site and go to Teaching to see a list of my up an coming classes