Local teacher featured in Arts Council article

Erin Oehler, an art instructor at Northwest Missouri State University’s Horace Mann Laboratory School, is one four artists featured in "A Quartet of Visual Artists From Missouri’s Far Corners," an article published online this month by the Missouri Arts Council.

The piece traces Oehler's development as a ceramicist and talks about her dual career as a potter and educator.

At Horace Mann, Oehler teaches art to children in kindergarten through sixth grade. Her husband, David Oehler, is an associate professor at the university and currently serves as chair of the Department of Fine and Performing Arts. The couple has three grown daughters.

Erin Oehler told MAC's Barbara MacRobie that she began her journey toward the ceramic arts after taking a part-time teaching job and then deciding to pursue a master’s degree in art education, which she completed in 2004. While a graduate student, she took a clay class and realized she'd found her primary form of artistic expression.

In the MAC feature, Oehler describes herself as a "functional" potter who usually makes objects intended for use, such as bowls and vases, rather than mere decoration.

"I like purely sculptural pottery, but most of the time I seem to be very grounded in the vessel. Maybe because I’m a mom?" she said.

Also an accomplished gardener, she and David were the recipients of a Beautification Award from the city of Maryville in 2010 for a garden they planted on a  steep bank in front of their home.

Oehler credits her artistic success to a supportive environment within the Northwest art department.

"I had always done drawing as a child, but it was personal and private. I didn’t want anyone to comment on my work. It was so hard when I went back to school in my 30s and had to make art in front of people," she told MacRobie.

"But in those years I grew more than I could have imagined. The criticisms were not ever meant to be hurtful, but to make me grow. My teachers would always say, 'This is an open-ended problem; your answer is going to be unique to you.' You realize that the freedom to be creative is very scary ... but it can be so rewarding. It was such a nice atmosphere in which to learn that."

In the years since, Oehler has translated that supportive approach to her own teaching.

"There’s not a day I don’t learn something from my kids," she told MacRobie.

"Sometimes it’s just a reminder to try things, to take risks, to make mistakes."

The Missouri Arts Council article will be available online through December at www.missouriartscouncil.org