John Kavalos

PROFILES IN EDUCATION

Candace Braun

School: Princeton High School
Years Taught: 22 Years, eight years at PHS
Subject/Grade Taught: Studio Art, AP Art History
Education: Bachelor's degree in fine arts, Syracuse University; Yale University painting fellowship; master's degree in fine arts, Temple University
Most Memorable Book: The Iliad, by Homer, translated by Samuel Butler
Person You Admire: The late Anthony Biancosino, PHS music teacher. "He was a very good friend, and I looked up to him as a mentor. He was a true artist and teacher, and a real [role] model for me."

With two passions in life – teaching and painting – it's hard to make time for both, says John Kavalos, art teacher at Princeton High School.

"I tell people that I would teach three days a week, 24 hours a day, just so I could have time to work on my painting," said Mr. Kavalos.

A teacher at the high school for eight years, Mr. Kavalos says it is often difficult to keep up with his own work as an artist while making time for his students. With his own studio in Cranbury, the artist creates large-scale figurative paintings of people, specifically his friends. While he hasn't exhibited recently, in the past he has shown his work in Manhattan, and most recently in group shows at Bristol-Myers Squibb.

However while the artist takes time out for his own work, he also goes above and beyond the call of duty as a teacher, as well.

Mr. Kavalos is the school's advisor for Numina, a professional student-run gallery at the high school. The gallery was created three years ago to promote an appreciation for art among high school students, and to encourage their interest beyond the scope of the classroom. While the gallery has been temporarily halted due to construction, Mr. Kavalos said he expects it to be up and running again this summer at its new facility.

The art teacher is also trying to set up a committee of teachers and community members concerned about preserving artwork in the building. He said that with the recent beginning of construction on the school, some of the artwork, such as a student mosaic in the back of the building, was torn down when it should have been preserved.

"No one was trying to save it, but they should have been," he said.

However, while Mr. Kavalos is troubled by the shifting that's currently going on at the high school because of construction, he said he is also very excited to see new changes happening.

"[The construction] is a very positive thing, it's wonderful," said the art teacher.

Some of the additions to the high school that will benefit the art department include a dark room, painting studio, sculpture studio, and an art teaching room that will be used mostly for art history classes.

Background

Born in Houston, TX, Mr. Kavalos comes from a family of artists and musicians. Relocating to New Jersey as a child, he now commutes to work each day from Long Branch. The art teacher's immediate family is a "pride of lions," as he has a house of more cats than he'd care to say.

Mr. Kavalos' "pet collection" began when he found a kitten on the boardwalk and took it home with him. Soon after his cat family began to grow.

"I sound like some old widower with all the cats, but the truth is, they are very domesticated and wonderful beings. They're my buddies," he said.

Mr. Kavalos said that his pets are also "great studio animals," which is important for him as he spends much of his spare time painting at his studio. The artist just recently started painting again, as he had to take time off from both working and painting two years ago due to illness.

Currently he is working on two large-scale figurative paintings on canvas, each 5' by 8' in size.

The teacher is also an adjunct instructor of drawing at The Cooper Union in New York, a private full-scholarship college that prepares students for professions in art, architecture, and engineering. Mr. Kavalos has taught one class per year at the school since 1998.

Coming to Princeton

While Mr. Kavalos taught for four years at Holmdel High School, he has mostly taught at the college level, in schools such as Rutgers University. For many years he was also the visiting artist for the New Jersey State Council on the Arts, and the National Endowment of the Arts.

The artist said he strayed from public schools because of the time commitment. He said he would rather have more free time to focus on his own artwork.

However, after visiting Littlebrook Elementary almost 10 years ago, he realized he wanted to be involved with Princeton's school district.

At the time of his first visit, Mr. Kavalos was working with the New Jersey State Art Council's Arts and Residents program, teaching mural art to elementary school children.

"I'd heard about Princeton and I'd heard about the quality of schools, but I had never been involved with them until that time," he said.

Soon after his visit, Mr. Kavalos applied for an art teacher position at the high school.

"The quality of the teachers in this building is really quite spectacular," Mr. Kavalos said. "Obviously the kids are wonderful too."

It was while the art teacher was working with young children in the arts and residents program that he had an experience he wouldn't soon forget. A third-grade caucasian boy who was working on a painting came up to the artist and asked him what colors should be mixed to create the color "caucasian."

"At that point I realized that the kid had a larger vocabulary than mine," said Mr. Kavalos. "It was a moment I'll always remember fondly."

Teaching Methods

Always interested in art, Mr. Kavalos has taken some of his teaching methods from his fifth grade art teacher, Ivan Petrovich. In his class, Mr. Kavalos learned one and two-point perspective drawing through its relation to science.

"He was an incredible teacher, a really wonderful man," said Mr. Kavalos.

Through this teacher Mr. Kavalos saw the way art could relate to other subject matter, which he took with him and now incorporates into his own teaching methods.

Currently, the art teacher said he is looking to other like-minded teachers in the district to see if he can find a way to cross over subject matter from one class to another. He said that the biggest problem in education today is the lack of association between the eight different classes students take each day.

"By forcing something into a particular subject and time frame, it tends to disassociate it from everything else," he said, adding, "You certainly don't want [art classes] to become study halls with art supplies."

By teaching art in a practical way, students can see how it relates to the world, and how the class can relate to art in the professional world, he said.