Brad Luke: Camp Creators & Alumni Artisans Series

For 5 summers (2002, ‘05-’08), Brad Luke taught art at Falling Creek. Fast forward to today, where he continues to educate and inspire the next generation of artists as a high school art teacher in Kentucky.

Where has life taken Brad since his last summer at camp? “2008 seems like such a long time ago, but thinking about camp the memories are super vivid,” he says. The events leading to his current employment actually began back in the spring of 2008. Brad had sustained a severe mountain biking accident in Dupont State Forest before the summer began, and was recovering during staff orientation. Though he didn’t work during the June session that year, he was back at camp for the Main session, after spending June at home in Kentucky to fully recover.

This gave him time to job hunt, and Brad landed an interview at Southwestern High School in the Pulaski County school district of Somerset, Kentucky. While driving back to Falling Creek for Main Camp Opening Day, he recieved the phone call with the job offer for his current teaching job. He began his new role after the 2008 summer wrapped up, and has been teaching high school art ever since.

Brad and his wife Stephanie have been married for 11 years, with a 5 year old son named Amos. Luckily, the whole family is able to be close by for work and school in Kentucky. “Stephanie is a Special Education teacher at the middle school in the same district where I work, and Amos attends the Kindergarten at the elementary school on the same campus as my high school,” said Brad.

In addition to teaching art, Brad is also involved in his local church and youth sports community. “This past season was my 13th season as the Assistant Soccer Coach for our high school team, as well as working with the middle school program,” said Brad. “I have been involved with the leadership at my local Nazarene church, serving on the church board for the past 10 years and working with the youth alongside our Youth Pastor.” Brad has also been the District President for Kentucky District NYI (Nazarene Youth International) for the past 6 years. “In short, that is the organization that is bringing churches together from across the western part of Kentucky. The NYI is leading, planning, and all around serving to create events that will impact the lives of the youth in our churches,” said Brad.

As a high school student himself, art was Brad’s main interest, and was what led him to further his education. When he got to college, Brad majored in art with a business minor, and worked at a Salvation Army Camp in Southern Ohio. “I spent time during school volunteering in youth groups, and this built a foundation of sharing knowledge and leading. After I graduated I was unable to find a long term position in an area that was suitable for my skills, so I worked as a long-term substitute teacher for a year. During that year I decided that I would go back to school and get my Masters in Education and work towards getting a job as an art teacher.”

Brad is passionate about both art and teaching youth, as former campers will remember from his time as a boys camp counselor. While it’s important to be able to express your creativity at camp in the summer, Brad also believes that art is an essential part of school curriculum during the rest of the year too. “I think learning art in school is important because it works a different area of the brain and ultimately teaches students, children, and adults to see the world differently. Art processes usually follow a set of steps in order to create, but those steps can all be done differently by different people to achieve different results, and this is the interesting part of art creation,” he said.

Though it’s been over a decade since he last worked at summer camp, there are still lessons and skills from Falling Creek that Brad continues to use today. “There are a lot of things from camp that have integrated their way into my life,” he says. “The single greatest would be the leadership skills that I began to learn while at camp, and how they guided me in so many areas of life. I truly believe that learning this comes from the great leaders that I worked under while I was at camp for 5 different summers.”

What advice would he give to a camper who wants to make art for a living? Brad emphasized the importance of dedication, saying, “If you want to make art your career you have to be willing to create art consistently, and this means that you will at times have to sacrifice other areas, because art takes time.” What about campers interested in teaching art? Brad’s advice for aspiring art teachers is to “spend time with others who are willing to teach you, and then you can begin to assist others in processes. Once you teach or help others, you begin to learn art at a deeper level. This in turn builds your skill, not only at teaching, but also at creating art.”

Not only does Brad teach art, he also creates it himself. “I work along with my students in my classes,” he says. Sometimes this looks like still life drawings with charcoal, and other times it looks like making tribal masks with cardboard and paper mache. “One of the most recent lessons that really caught me up and I couldn’t stop creating was a texture assemblage sculpture process, focused on Louise Nevelson. She focused on the use of found wood and repurposing to create sculptures through repetition and pattern, so in our class we tried to do the same with found objects on cardboard plates.”

In his classroom, Brad is concerned with teaching more than just art techniques. “The main thing that I hope my students learn in my classroom is that art is more than a piece of paper or a painting. I hope that my students not only learn the processes of art, but also see the reason behind the lesson, and are guided to a deeper understanding. I hope they see that art is an everyday thing that can be playful, hopeful, and inspiring.”