I believe that an educator’s central task is to stimulate the inner world of the student, challenging it with new artistic experiences and 
information to aid in bringing forth each student’s innate creative potential. I came to love the process of teaching through my experiences 
with diverse groups of students. The process of teaching, in turn, became a powerful source of inspiration for my own works. My first experience 
as an educator was in teaching art to young children. Children do not lack integrity. They live the moment they experience. I observed my young 
students’ learning process and their immediate ability to reflect onto the world with full openness. Children hungrily absorb the raw flow of their 
immediate surroundings and can instantly translate the resulting flow of emotions into creative output. I came to think of child’s  interaction with 
the world in terms of breathing, where inhaling is a discovery of the surroundings and the exhaling is an act of projection or release of the child’s 
inner energy onto the world. Their art was a symbiosis of these two processes. Later, teaching at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute in Troy, New
York I came to realize that education hinges on constant collaboration with students. It often requires an educator to transcend a student’s external 
limitations and makes humility, respect and dialogue the primary factors in developing productive and stimulating relationships with students and 
colleagues. This overarching approach to education continues to inspire and shape my teaching career.

        I focused my aspirations on a career in education of students in electronic arts and video production after a long journey that began with works in 
non-digital media. I worked with paint, photography, film and sculpture in Latvia, Israel and, most recently in the United States. In America I
discovered the vast potential of multi-media but continued to draw upon my diverse background and knowledge of these non-electronic disciplines 
in my works. This commitment to an open-ended, interdisciplinary approach became crucially important in teaching the undergraduate students in 
the Electronic Media, Arts and Communication (EMAC) program at Rensselaer. While considering technology and computer-generated imagery a
very powerful tool, I believe that exploring and integrating other media in the increasingly high-tech academic environment magnifies 
multi-dimensionality and enriches student work in the digital realm. The richness achieved through such mixing of electronic and other media holds
enormous educational potential - it provides soul and spirit in students’ work, the qualities that are often lacking in “1” and ”0” world.
       
        I believe that regardless of what medium we choose to work in it, is the creative thought and its stimulation that drives us to act. An art piece 
does not start from hitting record button of a video camera. Rather, it is conceived through an inner vision of a particular powerful order. It could be 
only an intuitive feeling of a texture, an emotional atmosphere or this may be a precisely imagined sequence of episodes. However, one should 
have a unique point of view, and a philosophical stand to generate this artistic impulse.

        I endeavor to build students’ knowledge of contemporary art history and encourage them to reflect on such issues as multicultural experience, 
gender and personal aesthetics to stimulate creative growth. I approach these topics through the subjectivity of social, political and cultural 
interpretations of the overarching issues. By exposing students to emotionally charged themes, I strive to trigger personal responses through writing, 
hands-on research and works. In my own work I do not separate between creativity, art and aesthetics. Rather, I strive towards a symbiosis of 
cultural, social and subjective to form the content of my works. I encourage students to search for personal aesthetics, guided by their own 
philosophies they express themselves as painters and the medium choices mold the search into an art product/work.

        To achieve this level of complexity in expression I bring many strategic exercises into my teaching practice to enhance students’ creativity 
through widening borders of perception. I cherish the playfulness of the mood in the class, as I believe it invigorates learning. The use of sound 
is a vital element in my teaching. Just as there is no breathing or eating (the most basic activities) without sound in this world, It is nearly 
impossible to fully experience if aural quality is left out. In my teaching practice, I give many listening exercises that focus on developing a fully 
enveloping, humane experience through the use of sound. Through exposure to diverse sound artists--ranging from John Cage to Philip Glass I strive 
to develop the knowledge of how sound can become an integral part of students’ work. I show that art work responds to various modes of inquiry: 
analytic, cultural and historical; thus students are equipped to explore the possibilities of each perspective and emboldened to push beyond their
own experience to expand their skills. In the end, I have enriched a student’s ability to think about, discuss, and produce artworks with a new
awareness of aesthetic and humanistic experience.