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Lorrie Blair, PhD

Professor, Art Education
Fellow, School of Irish Studies


Lorrie Blair, PhD

Art Education

How did you get into art education?

"When I started my studies, I didn't know any working artists.  I'm from a place where women were either nurses or worked in banks or were teachers...I didn't have any artistic role models. So when I was a couple of semesters into my Fine Arts major, I switched to Art Education and discovered that I had a real passion for teaching. Being able to teach something that I was also passionate about - art - allowed me to bring all my interests together..."

"The interesting thing is that, at the time, that decision made my friends angry; they said I was taking the easy way out...like I had really committed a crime. But this was years ago, and I'm still in the arts.  I still make art, while some of them don't make art anymore at all..."

What are your academic interests?

"Things that are very practical; I'm interested in the topics people teach rather than how they teach.  My particular focus is on what teenagers do on their own: graffiti, tattooing... And how those kinds of interests and intense motivations can be applied to a classroom, where motivation is often almost nonexistent."

Lorrie Blair teaches undergraduate courses in popular visual culture, Irish popular culture and pre-service teaching at the secondary school level. In the graduate program, she teaches courses on research methods and special topics courses related to her areas of research. She is active as a supervisor of MA and PhD thesis students.
 
Her teaching and research interests are censorship, outsider and folk art, Irish popular culture, and popular visual culture, with a particular focus on the gendered meanings and practices of body modification. Specifically, she interested in the role popular culture plays in teaching women about cosmetic surgery, piercing and tattoos. In 2005, she received the Faculty of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award.

Blair held the post of Associate Dean, Academic and Student Affairs for the Faculty of Fine Arts from 2009 to 2012 and currently serves as the Faculty's Code of Conduct administrator.


School of Canadian Irish Studies

Lorrie Blair, Ph.D. (Ohio State University), has published articles and presented papers on Grosse Île and other famine memorial sites, Saint Patrick’s Day Parades, and on various aspects of Irish popular culture. Her current research examines the narratives of selected men and women who have obtained "Celtic" or "Irish" tattoos. She teaches undergraduate courses in popular visual culture, Irish Popular Culture, and pre-service teaching at the secondary school level. In the graduate program, she teaches courses on research methods and special topics courses related to her areas of research. She is active as a supervisor of MA and Ph.D. thesis students and was a recent recipient of the Faculty of Fine Arts Distinguished Teaching Award.


Teaching activities


Research activities


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