About Us

At " Artisan Experience" we provide a lot of fun and adventure. We have a creative experience allowing you to work as an artist, while learning the history, culture, and science of the world around us. This holistic educational experience will reach all types of learners and capture the memory with a great art activity in a variety of media and techniques. Remember the awesome learning and celebratory moments of exploration, discovery, and creation with the help and guidance of a true Artisan

J. David Arnold has been teaching art in Indiana for 38 years and in Indianapolis Public Schools since 1986. Dave is currently a retired IPS teacher, adjunct professor, amateur naturalist, and history buff.  He has taught all grade levels K-12, and college. 

      Dave grew up in Middletown OH, just north of Cincinnati. Life began very simply with “tremendous messes in my Mothers house” that developed to a life of creative endeavor. “I have  worked to express myself and my ideas in artistic media my whole life”. “I even held art teaching/work sessions with the neighborhood kids.” Living in suburban Ohio farm lands began a devotion to nature. Living an outdoor lifestyle of camping fishing, hunting, and passing these values on to his three children. An avowed ecologist Dave was active in scouting and much of the earth first movement. Participating in the IPS outdoor science camps, during the school year, teaching Boy Scouts, and working church camps most summers, led to a life of outdoor education, culminating in several years as an aquatics director, teaching swimming, boating and life saving skills at a large Midwest BSA camp for several years. 

     Dave’s B.A. studies in art and education at Anderson University, and a Ball State Master’s Thesis studying, art history and a variety of media developed a mature artisan mind set. Learning leather carving from his grandfather as a child, and Apprenticing with a stone carver as adult added to the repertoire of skills that gave rise to “Artisan Experience” 

      The wealth of information acquired over the years through all these life experiences, combined with an urgency to educate others is what makes our program unique. Holistically teaching arts and culture in a combined format brings the past and present alive as one, involving multiple intelligences. The projects in each experience will teach, and share the vision and process of the artisan mindset, and why it is done. Developing personal skills while creating success and fun in each session, designed for children and adults alike. 

“I am nowhere, as much myself, and closer to God, than when I am out in the beauty of nature, camping, fishing, hiking, just enjoying the marvelous creation around me” - J. David Arnold