Rebecca Riley
Rebecca.Riley@nhmccd.edu

            Hello!  I am your instructor for the Art Appreciation teleweb course.  I am the Dean of Arts and Humanities at Kingwood College.  I am also an artist, working mostly in printmaking, painting, and mixed media.  My work is currently shown is 5 galleries around the United States, and is in numerous private and corporate collections.  I have an M.F.A. degree from Texas Tech University in printmaking and art history.  My undergraduate degree is in painting and art history with a minor in ceramics.  In undergraduate school, I also had the good fortune to study at the Escola Nacional de Belas Artes in Rio de Janeiro for a year. 
 

            Before I taught at Kingwood College, in addition to running my own studio, I did lots of other jobs to support my “art habit” (and my two children.)  I was a parochial school principal, a church organist, a pottery shop owner, a kindergarten teacher, a waitress, a typist, a bartender, an EMT, and (my personal favorite other than THIS job) a ski patrol at Angel Fire Resort in New Mexico.  I am married to a psychologist who is an Assistant Vice-President for Academic Affairs at the University of Houston-Downtown. (By the way, he never psychoanalyzes my work – he’s a smart man.)
 

            I hope you enjoy your distance learning course.  I first began teaching on the internet about 5 years ago, when I developed this course for our college district.  I appreciate the flexibility this medium offers both students and instructors, and I also like the opportunities for discussion on the bulletin board.    Art Appreciation is my favorite course to teach because I get the chance to help people learn to love art who would never have taken an interest if not for this class.  To view the Orientation Document for this course, just click on the link.  Read the document carefully and it will give you a comprehensive overview of the entire course, including materials, procedures, grading, how the webCT site will be used, etc. 
 

            If you need to communicate with me during the course, please use the email in webCT or my other email address (rriley@nhmccd.edu).  You may also call my office at 281-312-1618, although I am faster at answering email than at answering phone calls. Below are two art works that I made. On the left is a small mixed media piece called "Elaborate Little Prayers." On the right is a watercolor called "Wharton Nursery," painted outdoors at a little neighborhood nursery where I used to live.