Kimberly J. Frassett

Kimberly J. Frassett, BFA

In 1985, Kim Frassett began an innovative art education program in her garage in Huntington Beach, California. She began to teach her own children art lessons that coordinated with their history or science subjects. Believing primary sources to be the most truthful and interesting source of educational information she used art samples from the period under study as examples in art history or science to teach her students representational drawing. She began to include her children’s friends in these art lessons. The classes grew until she was teaching as many as 350 students a week in various locations throughout Los Angeles and Orange County.

Since that time, the vision and scope of her program have grown. She has spent the last 20 years developing this idea into an interdisciplinary art education program where the student learns representational drawing technique at the same time as they are learning science or history, writing and geography.

Her work experience includes teaching this program to Home Educated Students for 10 years at Biola University in La Mirada, while concurrently instructing autistic students at Speech and Language Development Center in Buena Park.

She started a children’s art school in 2007 which has Charter School and Home Educated students as its population.

She has recently completed a BFA in Drawing & Painting from Laguna College of Art & Design in Painting and Drawing, which she has pursued with the purpose of learning the most current techniques in art education and improving her own artistic skills.

Program

The time-honored tradition of copying the great masters of art is founded on the same principles that compel us to have our children learn from Beethoven or Bach in their music studies. As the student learns their grade level history or science lessons, we coordinate an art lesson, which is drawn from a primary source, and teach the student to make a master copy.

The student not only learns the art history, historical facts about the time and place but also experiences the culture of the people while they are learning artistic skills. They put this art project into their sketchbook. This sketchbook also includes a short student-written narration about the period studied (writing), student drawn maps (geography), and a timeline of world events (math). All student work is mounted into the sketchbook in a chronological fashion along the timeline (math).

By the time the student has completed their school year, they have written and illustrated a history or science book. It is quite an accomplishment for any person. They learn creativity as well as experience the fulfillment of completing a monumental task.

This curriculum fulfills all the ideals of a STEAM education. Science & Technology, interpreted through Engineering & the Arts, all based on Mathematical elements. The A stands for the Arts; it includes the liberal arts, which include Language Arts, Social Studies, Physical Arts, Fine Arts & Music that each shape developments in STEM fields.

MISSION: Restore Art Education for Future Generations

Education

  • Representational Art Instructor at Private Schools and Home School programs in the Orange County Area since 1989
  • Laguna College of Art & Design, BFA in Fine Arts 2017
  • BA General Art, California State University of Long Beach, 1983

Experience

TERRA ARTS FOUNDATION. President, 501c3 Nonprofit, 2013 – Present

HOMESCHOOL AT GRACE HB, Founder, 2013 – Present

MASTERPIECE CLASSICAL ACADEMY, Business Owner, 2007-Present, Huntington Beach, CA

HOMESCHOOL CAMPUS OF OC, Art & History Teacher

MARINERS CHURCH, Art & History Teacher

HOPE CHRISTIAN ACADEMY, Art & History Teacher

COAST HILLS CHURCH – INDEPENDENT LEARNING ACADEMY, Art & History Teacher

HOMESCHOOL FAMILY MINISTRIES, Art & History Teacher

SPEECH AND LANGUAGE DEVELOPMENT CENTER, Special Education Art Instructor 1997- 2009 Buena Park, CA

SUMMER PLEINE AIRE WORKSHOPS, Art Instructor, 2006-2014 Orange County, CA

BIOLA UNIVERSITY, STAR Program

Now called Biola Youth Academics

Art History Instructor, 1995-2006

STAR is a satellite program of the Community Services Department of the University.

Interests

  • Taking or teaching art lessons since the age of twelve.
  • Historical Costuming Business for 10 years for Theater, Stage and Movie Industry.

Exhibits & Awards

  • 2010-2017 LCAD Presidents Honor Roll 3.92 GPA
  • LCAD Merit Scholarship
  • THE ROMANCE OF GERMANY AND PRAGUE 2014 First Gallery, Laguna Beach
  • 2014-2015 Nina Fitzpatrick, LCAD Competitive Award Scholarship
  • Full-Swing LCAD Exhibition, Forest Gallery, Laguna Beach, CA
  • July – November 2014, One Person Show, Vineyard Community Church, Laguna Niguel, CA
  • November –January 2015, Fathers Heart Exhibit – One Person Show, Grace Lutheran Church, Huntington Beach, CA

You can not imagine the accomplishment I felt last week when I saw that one of my former students, Moses Hamborg, was in Ireland painting the portrait of the Provost of Queen’s University, Belfast. He is only 20 years old and was my student from age 6 to 16 when he took an early high school graduation and left for Florence, Italy to study classical painting. He is not the first of my students to accomplish amazing things in the art world.

I have been teaching for over 20 years in public and private schools in Orange County and I know that the philosophy prevalent in art departments in the 1970’s that teaches, “whatever feels good, must be right,” approach to life and art education is still prevalent today. Educators are still teaching Freudian Abstract Expressionism as if it were relevant. I see that as a problem. It devalues the artist and ignores the training involved in becoming a successful skilled draftsman. I have made it my goal to influence our culture in a positive way through a return to 19th-century artistic ideals of learned skills, truth, and beauty. In 2008 I founded a nonprofit to achieve the goal of teaching classical realism. Our mission is to, “Restore Art Education for Future Generations.” I believe that art is a skill and can be taught. I know that artistic skills are an important part of training the mind for success. I aim to teach my students to be creative and how to govern themselves to achieve their goals.

Because I believe that every person has value and purpose in our world I am positive that no one who desires it, should be denied artistic training. I am working on developing the curriculum which I have written for access to anyone who wants to learn real skills. My father was an Engineer and worked on the NASA Space Program for most of his life. One of the things he taught me was how to use creativity to solve problems. He would present me with a project or problem and then together we would use creative ideas to seek a solution. I learned from him how to teach others to be creative. In our program, we present the students with a daunting creative problem which their parents are even unlikely to attempt. Such as, how to write and illustrate a history of the Middle Ages or Renaissance, Early American Colonial, Ancient World or Art of the Marine Environment. I have written curriculum for 12 different subjects. These students meet with me one day a week for 30 weeks. Their book at its completion has 30 chapters. I employ other teachers to teach the science, literature, handicrafts, games, cooking, and economics of the time period so that the students get a full picture of life in their chosen area of study.