Teaching | Ryan Seslow ART & DESIGN

Teaching & Education

Updated May 2026

For over two decades, I have taught art and design across some of NYC’s most active college and university programs. My teaching began in 2002 with a graduate assistantship and grew, year by year, into a practice I take as seriously as my studio work.

The conditions of teaching have changed. So has the work.

In this era, my courses sit at the intersection of traditional craft and emerging technologies. Drawing and painting still anchor what I teach. So do generative AI, code, web platforms, and the kinds of digital systems that increasingly shape how creative people work. The tools have multiplied. The fundamental questions have not.

I have taught over 5,000 students across courses including both applied and digital instances of Drawing, Painting and Sculpture 1,2&3, Foundation, Digital Art and Design tools 1 &2, Graphic Design 1& 2, Web Design 1 & 2, Illustration, Graduate Illustration, MFA Thesis, MFA Seminar, Digital Storytelling, the History of Street Art and Graffiti., & more.. The through-line across all of them is the same: helping students develop their own creative intelligence and the capacity to direct it.

My teaching rests on three pillars:

1. Curiosity as Currency. In a moment saturated with information and tools, curiosity is the more valuable resource. The work is not having every answer. It is learning to ask better questions and develop the patience to follow them.

2. Technology as Medium. I treat AI, code, virtual environments, and digital archives as creative materials, not novelties. Students learn to use them with intention and judgment, the same way an earlier generation learned to use a camera or a printing press.

3. Learning as Legacy. Every course I teach is built as a living archive. Open-access websites, evolving syllabi, and collaborative platforms where students publish their work in real time. These spaces continue past the end of the semester. They become part of a larger record of creative practice that students can point to and build on.

Beyond the classroom, I am building tools, platforms, and learning environments that extend this approach. Some are public like the MFA Thesis Architect and the RSMAD, others are still in development. The teaching and the building are now part of the same practice.