Our Mission

Sarah Cress was born near Denver, Colorado to parents Russ and Diane Cress. Throughout her life Sarah lived in a majority of different places including Illinois, Iowa, Arizona and Pennsylvania. Sarah did a majority of her growing up in Joliet, Illinois. She attended the University of Illinois in Urbana-Champaign where she received a bachelor’s degree in art education, a bachelor’s degree in photography and a master’s degree in art education. Sarah is currently teaching photography at Streamwood High School and has bought a home in Lake in the Hills, Illinois.

Sarah believes that teaching art today is not just about asking students to scribble something on a piece of paper with a set of crayons. Sarah believes it is about the close and interwoven relationship of creative and thoughtful theory with aesthetic vision. She states, "We live in a highly visual world in which imagery surrounds us all the time. Billboards by the side of the road, television commercials, magazine advertisements, newspaper articles, all of these and more project a visual way of viewing the world. Art education can and should serve as a backbone for the comprehensive study of learning how to comprehend and analyze this imagery. Not only is it the responsibility of the art instructor to ensure that their students have the knowledge to assess such mass media, but they must also learn how to step away from the outside world and reflect upon themselves. Through the acquisition of technique and material, students can create imagery of their own that is a reflection of their own lives and viewpoints. Art education is a subject area that teaches students how to care about, create, and respond to art."