This dissertation is an autobiographical study that explores how my past experiences related to art and education inform my teaching, and how my teaching informs how I theorize about art. Through the research process, I investigated issues about art and education by "drawing on" personal experience. The study supports the notion that personal experience is the basis of knowledge and assumes that to understand teachers' knowledge it is beneficial to observe it from a teacher's perspective. It touches on issues of teacher knowledge, the role of personal history and attitudes, and identity. / The research involved observation of my teaching in a summer camp setting, layered with the autobiographical project of writing stories based on experiences related to art and education. The methods used to collect data consisted of established approaches to researching one's own practice, such as narrative writing, video documentation, and observation, as well as an arts-based approach to memory work that combined collage and narrative. The experiences that I addressed include my observation of two quilting guilds, my memories of making art as a child at summer camp and in elementary school, my graduate school experience in a Master of Fine Arts program, and my reflections on art that I see in galleries and museums. / Although the original goal of my study was simply to understand my teaching more fully, the process of research has done more than allow me to understand how my lived experiences inform my teaching. The study points out the complex interrelationship between the notion of "place" and my beliefs about art. Autobiographical research has been a process of challenging my beliefs and finding meaning through my own thinking; it has provided a way for me to develop a critical awareness of my practice, to question the taken-for-granted nature of my understanding of art and to imagine other possibilities for practice.

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