CONGDON, Kristin G. 1948-

PERSONAL: Born October 9, 1948, in Dublin, Ireland; daughter of Harold T. (a naval officer) and Brinkley (a cleric; maiden name, Croft) Goranson; married David C. Congdon (a social service administrator), April 18, 1970. Education: Valparaiso University, B.A., 1970; Indiana University—Bloomington, M.S.Ed., 1972; University of Oregon, Ph.D., 1983. Politics: Independent. Religion: Independent.

ADDRESSES: Office—Film Department, Communications Building, University of Central Florida, Orlando, FL 32816. E-mail—kcongdon@mail.ucf.edu.

CAREER: Writer and educator. Booth Residential Treatment Center, Wauwatosa, WI, education coordinator, 1978–79; Community Relations and Social Development Commission, Milwaukee, WI, coordinator, 1979; University of Oregon, Eugene, instructor, 1981–83; Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green, OH, assistant professor of art education, 1984–87; University of Central Florida, Orlando, Jenkins Eminent Scholar in Community Arts, 1988–93, professor of art, 1996–2000, professor of art and philosophy, beginning 2000, professor of film and philosophy, and director of the Cultural Heritage Alliance, c. 2005. Producer and director of the videotape John Mason: The Furniture Doctor, WGTE-TV, 1986; executive producer of Memory Painting: The Art of Bernadine Stetzel, WBGU-TV, 1987. Maude Kerns Art Center, member of education committee, 1981–83; Crealde Art Center, member of ArtReach advisory board, 1988–93, executive secretary and member of board of directors, 1989–91; Very Special Arts advisory board of Central Florida, member, 1989; Community Arts advisory board, chairperson, beginning 1989; Deland Museum, member of exhibition committee, 1990–91; Cultural Alliance of Greater Orlando, member; Folkvine Project, project director.

MEMBER: International Society for Education through Art, National Art Education Association (president of women's caucus, 1992–94), Alliance for Cultural Democracy, American Association of University Women, American Folklore Society, American Folklore Association, College Art Association of America, National Women's Studies Association, U.S. Society for Education through Art, Women's Caucus for Art, Folk Art Society of America, Florida Art Education Association, Florida Folklore Society (member of executive committee, 1992–94; former president), Council for Policy Studies in Art Education, Phi Kappa Phi.

AWARDS, HONORS: Manuel Barken Memorial Award, National Art Education Association, 1988, 1989, for best scholarly contribution to the field of art education; Mary J. Rouse Award for Outstanding Teaching, Leadership, and Scholarship in Art Education, 1989; Zeigfeld Award, U.S. Society for Education Through Art, 1998, for international work in the arts; Dorothy Howard Folklore and Educatio prize, American Folklore Society, and Florida Historical Library Foundation Carolyn Washbon Book Award for best popular book on Florida history, both 2002, both for Uncle Monday and other Florida Tales; Researcher of the Year Award, National Art Education Association; Educator of the Year Award, Southeastern Region's National Art Education Association Higher Education Division.

WRITINGS:

NONFICTION

(Editor, with Doug Blandy, and contributor) Art in a Democracy, Teachers College Press (New York, NY), 1987.

(Editor, with Doug Blandy, and contributor) Pluralistic Approaches to Art Criticism, Bowling Green University (Bowling Green, OH), 1992.

(Coeditor) Women Art Educators III, 1993.

(Editor, with Doug Boughton) Evaluating Art Education Programs in Community Centers, 1998.

(Editor, with Doug Blandy and Paul Bolin) Remembering Others: Making Invisible Histories of Art Education Visible, 2000.

(Editor, with Doug Blandy and Paul Bolin) Histories of Community-based Art Education, 2001.

(With Kara Kelley Hallmark) Artist from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary, Greenwood Press (Westport, CT), 2002.

Community Art in Action, Davis Publications (Worcester, MA), 2004.

(With Tina Bucuvalas) Just above the Water: Florida Folk Art, University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2006.

OTHER

Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales (folktales and prose), University Press of Mississippi (Jackson, MS), 2001.

Work represented in anthologies, including American Folk Art: A Guide to Sources, edited by S. J. Bronner, Garland Publishing, 1984; Women Art Educators II, edited by M. A. Stankiewicz and Enid Zimmerman, Indiana University Press, 1985; Putting Folklore to Work, edited by M. O. Jones, University Press of Kentucky, 1992; Encyclopedia of Community: From the Village to the Virtual World, 2003; Of Corpse: Death and Humor in Folklore and Popular Culture, edited by Peter Narraez, 2003; and Encyclopedia of African American Folklore, 2005. Contributor of articles and reviews to professional journals. Review editor, Journal of Multi-Cultural and Cross-Cultural Research in Art Education, 1987–; assistant editor, Journal of Social Theory and Art Education, 1990–91; member of editorial advisory board, Studies in Art Education, 1991–95; outside review editor, Southern Folklore, 1993–95; member of review board, Journal of Gender Issues in Art and Education, 1996–; review editor, Indigenous Teaching, 1998–.

SIDELIGHTS: Kristin G. Congdon is a professor and author who has spent most of her career writing critical texts about art, focusing primarily on the folk arts and arts in the community. She has edited or co-edited a number of academic reference works on these subjects. One such text is Remembering Others: Making Invisible Histories of Art Education Visible. This book mainly looks at community and folk arts and the ways of teaching them. School Arts contributor Kent Anderson called Remembering Others a "multidimensional recounting of contextual research."

Congdon also has written or co-written academic books on art-related topics. For example, she is the co-author of Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary. This text consists of seventy-five biographical sketches of artists living and working in North, South, and Central America, as well as the Caribbean. A reviewer for Booklist noted that the volume contains "clear, well-written essays." The subjects of these essays range from well-known to relatively unknown artists who work in all mediums, and Congdon and her coauthor deliberately chose to include a number of women artists. Despite this choice, Library Journal critic Rebecca Tolley-Stokes felt the volume neglects certain areas, but noted that "this affordable work does cover the basics for the student audience it purports to address."

Congdon ventures into an art of the written word, folklore, with Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales. This book is a compilation of forty-nine stories local to the specified state, with a related historical essay accompanying each tale. In Library Journal Pam Kingsbury commented that "every state would be lucky to have a guide like this to its folklore."

Congdon told CA: "As a person interested in both art and education, I saw a need to give women and folk artists visibility for the work they have done. Writing about them helps to validate their work. I write whenever I have time. I keep files on topics that interest me. Sometimes ideas gather steam for years, other times I get an idea and have to write about it immediately. But all of my writing seems connected. At least it does to me.

"The more I write the easier it is to do. The hardest thing to handle is that life doesn't permit me the time to write about everything I want to explore. I need to make choices.

"I really don't pay much attention to my books after they are written. I find little things wrong with them so I don't want to think about them too much. I like the book I'm working on best, because the ideas are new. So right now I like Just Above the Water best. But that will soon change."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Arts & Activities, January, 2004, Jerome J. Hausman, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures: A Biographical Dictionary, p. 8.

Booklist, March 15, 2003, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures, p. 1346.

Choice, April, 2003, M. Nilsen, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures, p. 1334.

Library Journal, December, 2001, Pam Kingsbury, review of Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales, p. 137; January, 2003, Rebecca Tolley-Stokes, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures, p. 87.

Reference & Research Book News, February, 2003, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures, p. 196.

School Arts, November, 2001, Kent Anderson, review of Remembering Others: Making Invisible Histories of Art Education Invisible, p. 50.

Sing Out!, fall, 2002, Dan Kedling, review of Uncle Monday and Other Florida Tales, p. 119.

Voice of Youth Advocates, October, 2003, review of Artists from Latin American Cultures, p. 340.

ONLINE

University of Central Florida Film Program Web site, http://www.cas.ucf.edu/ (August 22, 2005), biography of Kristin G. Congdon.