"Shades of Autumn" Award Ceremony
6:00 PM to 8:00 PM
Ames Center
12600 Nicollet Ave, Burnsville, MN 55337
Judge – Abbi Allan
A bit about Abbi:
Whether through her teaching, her art, or her entrepreneurship, Abbi Allan’s life work resides at the intersection of art and science. Examining the fragility of nature, her art examines the relationship of its beauty, resilience, and power with the potential for accumulation of grotesque effects when abused. The result is a hybridization of disciplines rooted in experimentation of media with scientific facts.
Bringing this hybridization to the classroom, Abbi approaches her teaching as a blend of art and science. The creativity of solving problems to effectively teach to students’ inherent unique strengths, interests, and personalities challenges her to continuously grow as an educator. The application of scientific method to hypothesize, test, analyze, and adapt through the use of observational and assessment data supports her efforts to be an effective, empathetic teacher. Having taught preK to adults across a broad range of educational contexts (e.g., the Science Museum of Minnesota, the College of Visual Arts, STAR Academy, The Phipps, and MCAD), Abbi brings more than 20 years’ of teaching experience to her position. This year she will be the Visiting Artist for the Teaching Artist Minor at MCAD
An avid volunteer, Abbi also donates her time to Extreme Noise Records and programs her own radio show on local independent station KFAI, where she served as the volunteer Music Director from 2000-2012 and 2017-2022. Allan holds a Bachelor of Fine Arts from Alfred University with minors in Biology and Art History (2000), and a Master of Fine Arts in Sculpture from the Minneapolis College of Art and Design (2008). In her spare time, she gardens, plays with her three Dobermans, and observes the peculiarities of our natural world.