Vicksburg native Amanda Cashman was named Bill Poirier Mississippi Outstanding Art Educator of the Year for 2015.

“This is an award that is given out every year pretty much by the Mississippi Art Education Association,” she said. “It’s one of the highest honors.”

The award was presented to Cashman at the annual fall conference earlier this month.

“It’s for those who exemplify what the organization stands for and strives to be,” she said. “Of course it’s for excellence in art education, but it’s also for being involved within the Mississippi Art Education Association.”

Cashman has served as the newsletter chair and she is currently the elementary division representative and co-chair for the central division.

“I was surprised because it’s such an honor,” she said. “You’re nominated by your peers and your colleagues within the association.”

Cashman said she was humbled that that so many of her colleagues thought she was ready for the award already.

“I kind of felt like it was an award for those teachers who have been teaching for 20 and 25 years that everybody looks up to and have made such a difference,” she said. “For me to be nominated for the award was just a real honor.”

Cashman is in her 11th year of teaching art.

“I started teaching in 2004 at Vicksburg Catholic Schools at St. Aloysius, and I also taught some at St. Francis,” she said.

She then took two years off to work at the Mississippi Museum of Art in Jackson from 2007 to 2009.

“I worked in the education department,” she said. “I did a lot of summer camps, and I did a lot of classroom experiences and field trips and group tours.”

Since 2009, Cashman has been at St. Anthony Catholic School in Madison.

Cashman is a 1998 graduate of St. Aloysius High School and a 2002 graduate of Millsaps College, and she lives in the Frondren Art District of Jackson.

Cashman said for as long as she can remember she’s always been extremely artistic.

“I always had a sketchbook and sack of crayons that I would take in the car with me,” she said. “I can just always remember drawing and painting. Even in the summers, I went to art camp whereas other kids went to soccer camp.”

Cashman reflected on the art teachers she had growing up and pointed to them as the reason she decided to go on and teach art.

“I had so many great art teachers in Vicksburg,” she said. “Randy Jolly and Lisa Grant were my art teachers in high school, and they just embraced me and let me learn things and find things out and do things for myself, and I think that’s what’s so cool about art is the exploration aspect of it.”

Cashman said she likes that with art there really are no right or wrong answers.

“That’s one of the reasons I love doing what I do,” she said. “My kids always surprise me with answers to questions and end results to projects. They’re always coming at me with the unexpected. You can’t get lazy doing this job. It’s always moving and evolving.”

The best part of teaching, Cashman said, is sharing what she loves and is so passionate about, which is art.

“That exposes them to that and teaches them to love art,” she said. “I love what I do because I get to do what I love.”