Staff

Carla Bednar

ArtsZone Coordinator

cbednar@philaedfund.org

215-665-1400 ext. 3554

Carla Bednar is an award winning artist, educator, designer, and consultant bringing art and design to the public for more than twenty-five years. From 2001-2010, she created exhibitions, tours, presentations, and key educational programming at The Design Center, Philadelphia University. As Project Manager, then Assistant Director, she authored and co-authored successful, competitive grants, developed Act 48 credit programs for K-12 teachers, assisted in the care and restoration of the university’s renowned historical textile collection, and oversaw a select group of students hired for internships each year. She created Design Exploration & Creativity Kits, featuring lesson plans and activities about graphics, fashion, product design, and architecture distributed to 100 museums and educational institutions in the Philadelphia region. Bednar co-founded and now directs Fabric of Philadelphia, a national and regional heritage initiative exploring the role of textiles in shaping Philadelphia, past and present. Lace in Translation, a Fabric of Philadelphia pilot exhibition (2009-2010) funded by the Pew Charitable Trusts, which Bednar co-curated, was featured in The New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, Elle Canada, Museum, and FiberArts magazines.

As president of Carla Bednar Studio, Bednar spearheads art and design education initiatives. Since 1993, she has created formal and informal arts education opportunities within diverse settings in K-12 schools, community venues, universities, and museums. Clients have included the Philadelphia Arts in Education Partnership, The University of the Arts, Philadelphia University, the Free Library of Philadelphia, The Miquon School, Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and MetroArts in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. She founded and directed Make and Take a Masterpiece (1995) and Out and About Art (1998) to introduce young rural students and their families to internationally acclaimed artists, architects and designers, and to explore artifacts held in local, regional, and national museums. Both programs received grant awards and highest accolades during peer review by the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts. Bednar holds an art specialist teacher certification from the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, a BFA in studio art from Kutztown University, and a Master of Art Education (MAE) from the University of the Arts, Philadelphia. From 2000 to 2002, she participated in the Violette de Mazia Trust Seminars of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts interpreting the Barnes’ Foundation’s method of aesthetic philosophy for application in contemporary classrooms. Two research papers, Transitive Composition: Between Extremes and Dimensions of Open Composition: Keys for Opening the Skies, were presented at The Barnes Foundation in Merion, Pennsylvania. Bednar has an extensive background in art and architectural history and has traveled throughout Europe, Japan, and North America conducting independent studies of art, decorative art, design, and architecture.

As an artist, Bednar creates drawings, prints, and paintings. From 1994–2004, she was a member of Tabula Rasa, an international collaborative of artists, designers and architects investigating the intersections of culture, materials, process, and product through thematic installations. Since the 1970s, Bednar’s work has been displayed in museums, galleries, and other public venues and her work is held in private collections in the United States and Canada.