“It’s insane for the fact that our practices have changed so much, for the fact that we’re such a technology-based world in the media arts,” Steeplechase Elementary Art Teacher George Canfield told LINK nky before his first fifth-grade class on Tuesday. “And though I embrace it, and I definitely expose the students to it, I want to ensure that we follow the old practices, like the painting, the ceramics. I don’t want kids to lose touch with using their hands in different ways to get creative.”
Steeplechase is only in its fourth year of operation, and Canfield was responsible for building much of the school’s art program himself. In fact, he was recently honored by Artsonia, an online gallery of student art portfolios, with a 2025 Art Education Leadership Award, making him one of only 15 awardees nationwide.
When LINK nky visited Canfield, he was teaching his class about still life. He’d put some art supplies in the center of each table and after explaining what still life was to the class, he instructed them to begin drawing.
One fifth grader, Ella Birch, said art was her favorite class.
“Because it’s calming,” Birch said. “You can, like, go out of the world. Nothing can stop you, what you’re doing, what you like doing.”
“We can express our creativity,” said another fifth grader, Isabella Spiller.
Canfield has been with the district for about eight years and previously taught at Florence Elementary before Steeplechase opened up. His principal encouraged him to apply for the open art teacher position at Steeplechase. Since he was the school’s first-ever art teacher, he had near total freedom to establish the school’s art program.
“When the school was being built, they were like, ‘Here’s some money, and it’s all on you,'” said Canfield.
By the start of the first year, the room had been stocked with drying racks, a kiln, and disposable art supplies. Canfield said he liked to use pop culture to keep the kids engaged—paper representations of Pokémon adorned the walls, and a cardboard cut-out of Taylor Swift stood near his desk—while teaching them about both historical and living artists. Portraits of famous artists lined one of the walls.
Canfield himself is primarily a sculptor and 3D artist, although he said, “the kids, I use them as my medium. They create in here, and then I use their artwork to form the murals and come up with different things.”
The murals he mentioned consist of large paper images that can be augmented, altered and moved around to different surfaces in the school. There weren’t any up when LINK nky visited, but displaying student work is a big part of Canfield’s class and not just in the school itself. Canfield has posted over 22,000 student art projects to Artsonia, according to his website profile. He also posts student artwork to his X account. Anyone can freely view the students’ work on Artsonia.
“Everything that we make in the art room, I photograph, or I have the kids photograph, and we work together to upload their portfolio,” Canfield said, “and then by the end of their career at Steeplechase… we look at the growth and the celebration of what had happened in their portfolio.”
“The kids, they love it,” Canfield also said. “Parents love it… I remember when I was in school, most of my art was thrown away because, you know, you bring some of it home, your parents put on the fridge, it’s done. But other than that, to have it forever is amazing.”
You can view full portfolios of different Steeplechase art projects here.