Abstract
This paper chronicles the theory and practice of shifting a Saturday Art Program designed for pre-service teachers that had focused on traditional lesson planning and craft products into a dynamic engagement with the community, contemporary art, and pedagogical inquiry by emphasizing one aspect of this change: lesson blueprinting. Over the past three years, the Saturday Art Program has been re-focused by re-conceptualizing lesson planning, assessment, edTPA issues, the infusion of contemporary art practices, collaborative teaching, and a renewed use of aesthetic theory. All of these trajectories have resulted in creating a new Saturday art community, one that was successful enough to spawn demand for more Saturday art outside of the practicum that continues to serve the community as a space for art inquiry decoupled from teacher training. This essay begins a dialogue about how Saturday art communities across the United States can be more than supplemental art experiences or art-labs for pre-service teacher training and instead become spaces for public debate about what art is and how it can be practiced in different contexts.
