When I write for the Women’s Corner of the Gazette, it is always difficult. Not because I don’t have a likely subject, but because there are so many intelligent, active and involved women in this community. Every day, I hear about the accomplishments and the ways these women demonstrate that their hearts beat in tune with their communities.
I introduce this week Maure Irwin-Furmanek, who is both an artist and an art teacher. She teaches in the State College Area School District, both in the high school and in the Delta Program.
Irwin-Furmanek graduated from Penn State and holds a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction. She spent 11 years as art education supervisor and instructor at PSU before taking a position with SCASD teaching at several schools.
Now at the high school, Irwin-Furmanek said, “Each time I have moved in my career, it has seemed right for the time in my life. I have three children, 13, 11 and 7 years of age, and with them in school, I love what I’m doing right now.
“Yes, I would like to get back to painting, which is my first love. But, I also have a home studio and have begun to make fused glass jewelry, which is available at the Green Home Goods (in Altoona), The Makery (209 W. Calder Way in State College) and 321 Gallery (in Hollidaysburg).”
Irwin-Furmanek said the home studio gives her a creative outlet and a way to show her visual expressions through wearable art. Youth painting and drawing classes also are offered at her studio.
As with so many women I have interviewed, Irwin-Furmanek has a social conscience and has always grafted that into her art and her teaching.
She became interested in the work that Carol Falke, of State College, is involved with in Rwanda. For World Water Day, her students sold art to raise money for a water filtration system in Rwanda. Other projects that provide a means of connecting with social issues include a huge mural that was prepared for the Easter Seals Foundation. Her State College High School masters studio class is the one that has done the most with social artwork, completing a “postcards for Rwanda” project as outreach.
The masters studio and drawing seminars are for more serious art students who may wish to pursue art careers. The AP studio, Irwin-Furmanek said, is where students work on preparing portfolios to present to the AP Placement Board prior to college entrance. Some of the other classes she teaches are drawing, painting and commercial design.
In October, a $2,000 grant helped make a printmaking workshop available.
Within the Delta Program, Irwin-Furmanek teaches fifth through eighth grades. This group is participating in a class called “Remix.”
“Do you wonder what gives artists their ideas? Well … here is food for thought … no idea is original,’ Irwin-Furmanek wrote. ‘Ideas come from what we see, what we do, what we like and what interests us. Ideas build from other ideas — from other people and our surroundings. In this class, we will explore the idea of ‘remix’ — recreating, rethinking, refreshing, reinventing, remixing existing art and culture to make something new.”
The class will explore this idea through drawing, painting, digital art, sculpture and more.
As far as future plans, Irwin-Furmanek has a show coming up at The Makery that involves kids. And, the school district’s art show for kindergarten through 12th grade will be held in Penn State’s Robeson Gallery from Saturday, Jan. 7, through Monday, Jan. 23.
