Anthony Aiuppy didn’t really get a different job last week, he just got a lot more of it.
He was named the J. Wayne and Delores Barr Weaver Educator for Family and Children’s Programs at the Museum of Contemporary Art Jacksonville.
In November, the Weavers gave $500,000 to endow an education position at the museum.
Aiuppy’s responsibilities include developing tours for public and private school students, creating lesson plans for outreach programs, writing curriculum for MOCA’s summer camp programs and creating activity guides.
More than 16,000 children participate annually in education programs at the museum.
“It’s a lot more responsibility,” he said.
Aiuppy is familiar with the museum and its programs. He was a summer camp art instructor for the past two years and has been an adjunct professor at the University of North Florida, the museum’s education partner, since 2014.
Aiuppy discovered art an early age while growing up in St. Louis.
One of four children raised by a single mother, “drawing kept us out of trouble,” he said.
He came to Jacksonville with his family in 1996 and graduated from First Coast High School.
Aiuppy didn’t begin his career in art for a few years. After high school, he worked for three years in a box factory in North Jacksonville, and then decided he needed a change.
“I just had to get out,” he said. “I drove to Olympia, Washington, which was as far away as I could get.”
From Washington, he moved to Chicago, where he worked at a printing shop and became interested in commercial art.
After a few years, he returned to Jacksonville –– and the box factory –– before enrolling at Florida State College at Jacksonville, where he earned a degree in graphic design.
“I was always interested in applied art. With that, I could get a job,” said Aiuppy.
It wasn’t until he enrolled at UNF that he switched his major from graphic design to fine art and became a painter, inspired by professors Paul Ladnier, Kyle Keith and Louise Freshman Brown.
After graduating from UNF, he was accepted in the master’s degree program at Savannah College of Art and Design, then in 2013 went to work for Duval County Public Schools.
“With a master’s degree, you can either teach or work in a museum,” Aiuppy said.
Teaching and working with children at summer camps has had an effect on his painting.
“I feed off the energy of the kids who come to MOCA,” he said. “I relearn watching the students work and it influences the subjects and colors I choose.”
Looking ahead, Aiuppy wants to enhance the museum’s existing programs and extend the museum’s creative relationship from the students to their families as well.
“When kids come here and get excited, they can take their excitement home,” he said.
Also on his calendar is working on some programs that could make adults more aware of the accessibility of art and the museum.
“I’d like to help more people understand MOCA,” Aiuppy said. “There are still people in Jacksonville who don’t know there’s a contemporary art museum Downtown.”
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