Visual Arts

Alumni Spotlight: Keith Ailey Celebrates Art and Community

Meet Ontario's 2025 Post-Secondary Art Educator of the Year

"My teaching style is probably a little bit unconventional," says Lakehead alum Keith Ailey (HBFA'97, BEd'98).

"I'll start each lesson—whether it's in a high school or university class—with an art demonstration.

I show students how to mix paint or how to apply a technique. And then I tell them: 'Let's get some clay on those hands and some paint on that brush!'"

Lakehead Students Learn from a Master

That engaging, joyful approach is one of the reasons Keith was recently recognized with the 2025 Post-Secondary Art Educator of the Year award from the Ontario Art Education Association (OAEA).

He was given this honour for his work in Lakehead's Faculty of Education.

Keith Ailey, wearing a checked shirt and glasses, smiles at the camera

Keith has an Honours Bachelor of Fine Arts (1997) and Bachelor of Education (1998) from Lakehead.

Since 2023, Keith has been teaching visual arts to university students who will go on to become intermediate/senior and primary/junior level teachers.

"I've dedicated my life to teaching art, so to be recognized at the provincial level is amazing!" he says of the OAEA award.

The award celebrates excellence in art education and exceptional teachers who show commitment to nurturing artistic skill, creativity, and critical thinking in their students—all qualities that Keith is known for developing through innovative and inclusive classroom work.

"It's one of the greatest honours of my career. I'm so thankful to my department chair, Dr. Pauline Sameshima, for being so supportive and believing in what I'm doing in the classroom."

Building Connections with Students

As both a longtime high school art teacher in Thunder Bay and a Lakehead Faculty of Education instructor, Keith works hard to forge a connection with his students and meet them where they are.

Keith Ailey speaks to a group of students around a large table in a classroom while holding a drawing

Keith accepted his OAEA Post-Secondary Art Educator of the Year award at a ceremony in February 2026. The award recognizes exemplary teaching practice, commitment to student growth, and outstanding contributions to the art education community.

"In my university teaching, I focus on what, specifically, do they need," he says, adding that his education students often wonder about writing report card comments, speaking to a parent, or evaluating someone else's art.

"I build my teaching practice around their concerns, and everything has to be practical. If I'm doing it in my high school classroom, it's something that these teacher candidates will use in their classrooms one day."

From the Studio to the Trails

Community involvement is a crucial part of Keith's teaching.

Recently, he was a co-leader of a large multi-year community project to restore the Chippewa Park carousel, a beloved amusement ride built in 1915 that has delighted generations of children.

Artists, art teachers, and high school art students designed and painted 16 iconic northwestern Ontario scenes—including Kakabeka Falls, the Sea Lion, and the pagoda—on the large wooden panels that adorn the carousel's canopy.

"It's something that's going to last another 100 years—our grandchildren will be able to ride that carousel and see that art," Keith says.

Keith Ailey stands in front of painted carousel panels propped up on a stage

Keith with the Chippewa Park carousel's beautifully refurbished canopy panels. In 1934, the year that the carousel arrived at Chippewa Park, children could have three rides for five cents.

Another ambitious multi-group project he's proud to have helmed was commissioned by Lakehead Public Schools and centred on the theme of Reconciliation.

Art students from four local high schools incorporated insights from Indigenous and non-Indigenous community members into four canvases. These paintings were then shown at a Powwow celebration on Anemki Wajiw (Mount McKay) and at Thunder Bay's Folklore Festival. They are now on permanent display at the Lakehead Public Schools board office.

Next up: Public art that beautifies some large refuse bins on the Thunder Bay waterfront.

Besides art, Keith has deep rooted passion for the outdoors, which he shares with students by coaching cross-country skiing, cross-country running, and mountain biking at Superior Collegiate & Vocational Institute. He even teaches his students how to fish at a creek that runs behind the high school.

Keith Ailey crouches in a stream while holding a speckled fish in his hands; a student stands on either side of him

Keith makes sure that students appreciate the outdoors as well as art. Right, he and some students hook a rainbow trout.

Throughout his long career as both an artist and art teacher, Keith has inspired a love of art and fostered the creative thinking, problem solving, and teamwork skills that go along with it.

"I find great satisfaction in seeing my students develop their art skills and knowledge, but also their confidence and enthusiasm to come back the next day and try new things and to grow," he notes.

"It's hugely rewarding."

Keywords:

Keith Ailey

2025 OAEA Post-Secondary Art Educator of the Year

Visual Arts

Tashie Broadbent Harnesses the Power of Art to Heal

Northwestern Ontario community members made the decision to be part of Canada's journey to reconciliation by creating the stunning painting Maamawi, which now hangs in the Agora on the Thunder Bay campus.

"Maamawi refers to the action of coming together," says Tashie Broadbent, an Anishinaabekwe artist and Lakehead visual arts student who led this powerful community-based art project in September 2024.

Maamawi painting featuring a turtle and a jingle dress dancer

Lakehead's Office of Indigenous Initiatives reached out to Tashie about leading this unique art project. "Maamawi was a community effort," Tashie says, "and the process of creating the piece was the main point. I'm very grateful that I got to be the carrier of the community's ideas."

Reconciliation has a strong personal resonance for Tashie.

"My father is a Sixties Scoop survivor who began searching for his mother as an adult," Tashie says. After finding her, Tashie's family moved from London, Ontario, to his home community of Manitou Rapids in northwestern Ontario where his mother was living. "This allowed me to absorb cultural influences, especially at powwows," Tashie says. It was in Manitou Rapids that she became familiar with the Woodland style of art that was used to create Maamawi.

"Woodland art employs bold lines, colours, and symbolism to illustrate Indigenous stories and teachings that I take inspiration from," Tashie explains. "There are times when Indigenous knowledge and perspectives should be at the forefront and, for this initiative, painting in the Woodland style made sense."

The Maamawi project was open to the general public, and more than 40 people took part in a brainstorming session to conceptualize the artwork and to talk about how they were fostering reconciliation. Along with community members, grade 7 and grade 8 students from Bishop EQ Jennings school, Lakehead University Indigenous Transition Year students, and Lakehead University Indigenous Learning students engaged in the artistic process.

"The imagery I chose to symbolize reconciliation—and to design the sketch that formed the basis of the painting—came from the participants' thoughts and intentions," Tashie says. "Many of the Indigenous participants said they were advancing reconciliation through practices like singing and dancing to keep their culture alive. Many of the settler participants said it was by educating themselves about the injustices faced by Indigenous Peoples in Canada and by acknowledging the damage this has caused. This is the significance of the turtle in the artwork—in the Anishinaabe Seven Grandfather teachings, the turtle is an embodiment of both the truth and the land. The jingle dress dancer that appears on the turtle is dancing to heal the land and its inhabitants."

Tashie Broadbent holds a strawberry tart in front of a building

Tashie has loved art since she was a child, but she only began thinking of it as a vocation after her parents began reconnecting with their culture. "My mom motivated me to pursue visual arts and she's given me little lessons over the years about my connection to art."

In the painting's upper left corner, a circle containing a drum represents the Indigenous community, which is joined by a line of connection to a circle in the bottom right corner containing a tree. "The tree represents the settler community and the learning and growth that's transforming it. The line of connection is wavy to signify the detours that reconciliation will take."

The actual painting process, guided by Tashie, happened in a second session. Afterward, Tashie worked nonstop to fix up the line work and the details in the circles and the turtle's shell, not finishing until the night before the artwork's unveiling. She was incredibly nervous about whether people would like it, but she arrived at the ceremony to find her family, friends, and professors there to support her. "It was so special to have people I look up to congratulating me," she says.

Tashie believes that projects like hers are important to reconciliation because "art is medicine and art can bridge cultures. Maamawi wouldn't have come together without people coming together."

Meet Tashie and get a behind-the-scenes look at the making of Maamawi.

Keywords:

Tashie Broadbent

Visual Arts

Truth and Reconciliation