Art

Art at St. John’s

The main goal of our art department is to familiarize the students with the formal elements and principles of art, such as line, color, shape, pattern, and emphasis. Here, students learn through lessons based on culturally significant themes, famous artworks, seasonal and current events, and even science. Students also learn to recognize and use these principles to create works that are both visually and conceptually engaging.

We provide students with various 2D and 3D materials to help establish artistic skills, creativity, and dexterity. They will have a chance to experiment with everything from crayon on paper to fired pottery. Our goal is to provide students with the confidence to express their own creativity and ideas with each piece of art they create for each assignment. By doing this, students will be more confident in using their creativity and skills in everything that they do.


Emily Perez
Art Teacher

Ms. Emily Perez is a graduate of Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Art Education. In 2008, while student teaching at Fremont Junior High School in the Mesa Public School District, she was the recipient of ASU’s College of Education’s Student Teacher of the Year award for Secondary Education. ASU is where she discovered and developed her love for Fine Arts education.

For over 15 years, Ms. Perez has engaged students in art across Arizona from ages 3-18 in a variety of venues including The Phoenix Zoo, the Arizona Museum for Youth (now the IDEA Museum), San Tan Mountain Regional Park, and the City of Tempe. In 2013, she was awarded the Cooley Award by the Town of Gilbert, AZ for her significant contribution to an Arts program through initiating the Art Masterpiece program at Centennial Elementary School.

In 2018 she was selected to participate in the Global K-12 Education Research Association Summer Camp in Hebei, China where she taught 3rd and 6th grade Visual Arts in English for the Shijiazhuang Foreign Language Education Group. In 2019, she went on pilgrimage to Italy with her home parish. There she got to see, touch, and be moved by the Art she had only seen in textbooks. The highlight was being a lector for Mass near the crypt of Sts. Benedict and Scholastica in Montecassino!

After teaching for 12 years in the Higley Unified School District in Gilbert, Arizona, Ms. Perez made an adventurous move to Minnesota in 2021 where she taught a delightful year in Mounds View Public Schools at Pike Lake Kindergarten Center. Ms. Perez is excited to be beginning her 15th year in education here at St. John the Baptist Catholic School where she can pair and share her love of the Catholic faith with her love for Art.

Contact Ms. Perez