Meet Claire, Santa Maria’s Head of Visual Arts
There is something Claire Rushton notices quickly about students in an art room. Often, it is not just what they make, but what quietly finds its way onto the page.
As Santa Maria College’s Head of Visual Arts, she speaks about student work with the kind of care that tells you exactly why she teaches. Behind every drawing, painting, print or sculpture, she sees a perspective taking shape. For Claire, that is one of the great privileges of teaching art: helping students realise that what they think, feel and notice about the world is worth expressing.
Art Was Always Part of Life
Claire’s path into Visual Arts began in a creative home. Her mum was a quilter, but also turned her hand to sewing, painting, drawing and all kinds of craft, so there was always something being made. That early environment left a lasting mark.
At school, Claire was drawn to creative subjects, studying Visual Arts, Graphic Design and Drama before going on to Edith Cowan University in Mount Lawley, then part of WAAPA. She began her degree intending to major in Textiles, but over time found herself pulled more strongly toward Painting, with her final-year work focused on drawing.
Teaching came naturally after that. Claire had seen the profession up close through her mum’s work at a local high school, and during university she held retail and hospitality roles that often involved working with young people. She found those connections rewarding. Twenty years on, after teaching in secondary schools across Perth, that instinct still feels like the right one.
Why Students’ Voices Matter
What drew Claire to Santa Maria was something she had noticed long before joining the College.
She remembers visiting the Art Department during her teaching qualification and being struck by both the standard of student work and the calm, productive atmosphere in the classrooms. Over the years, she also saw Santa Maria students’ work appear in exhibitions and competitions across Perth. The creativity and technical skill stood out, and so did what those works suggested about the culture behind them.
Now part of the community herself, Claire says it is the pastoral care and the sense of belonging that she values most. There is genuine care for students here, she says, and just as importantly, care among staff.
That combination matters in a subject like Visual Arts, where students are often asked to take risks, solve problems and share something personal. Claire describes her teaching as explicit and skills-based, but never narrow. She wants every student, whatever their starting point, to learn something new and create work they are proud of.
She is especially interested in helping senior students make artwork that says something truthful about identity and the way they see the world. At the same time, she delights in the openness of younger students, whose curiosity often sends them in bold and unexpected directions.
You do not wait for inspiration
Ask Claire what role the arts play in education, and her answer is immediate: they are essential.
Through the arts, students build creativity and self-expression, but also persistence, critical thinking and visual literacy. They learn to sit with uncertainty, consider different perspectives, and keep refining an idea until it says what they mean. They work with their hands. They slow down. They learn patience.
That belief shapes the advice Claire returns to again and again, both for students and for herself. She loves a quote from artist Chuck Close about not waiting around for inspiration, but getting to work and letting ideas emerge through the process. It is advice she finds especially important in a time when many young people can become caught in perfectionism before they have even begun.
Outside school, Claire says life is full with two young children, both of whom share her interest in making things. There are also a few details students might not expect: a ski season in Canada spent working as a lift operator at a small resort in Alberta, snowboarding trips in Japan and New Zealand, and life as an “accidental farmer” with 15 inherited fruit trees on a suburban block.
It is an image that somehow fits. A teacher who understands that good things grow slowly, unevenly, and often through trial and error.
Which is perhaps exactly what a great art room teaches too.
- Arts Leadership, arts learning, Catholic Schools Perth, Featured, Girls' Education Perth, Head of visual arts, perth schools, Santa Maria College, Student Creativity, Student Voice, visual arts education
Author: Santa Maria College
Santa Maria College is a vibrant girls school with a growing local presence and reputation. Our Mission is to educate young Mercy women who act with courage and compassion to enrich our world. Santa Maria College is located in Attadale in Western Australia, 16 km from the Perth CBD. We offer a Catholic education for girls in Years 5 – 12 and have 1300 students, including 152 boarders.
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