Acrylic & Paint Marker on Longboard • Private Collection

In my classroom, the teacher vandalizes the students’ belongings.

John Beeler • Main Line Times • June, 2010

Welsh Valley Middle School art teacher Todd Marrone quotes Leonardo da Vinci, “Poor is the pupil who does not surpass his master,” and typically refuses to draw or paint on a student’s project. Of course all teachers are honored when former students acknowledge their work and ask for advice so he was thrilled when his former eighth-grade pupil, graduating Lower Merion High School senior Hanna Williams of Narberth, asked him to collaborate with her on her independent community-learning project, Senior Project, which in the case of Hanna (pronounced hah-na), a talented traditional oil painter, was an art project. (more…)

Ben Franklin Jr. High Art Club • Fargo, ND

“Hey Todd,

I just wanted to send you the pictures of the mural we did as a junior high art club project all the way here in Fargo, North Dakota. We got permission to do it on 2 4×8′ panels of plywood. Originally it was going to be much larger, but then we would have had to get permission from the district. We created a logo for our art club t-shirts and screen printed them this morning. Also, I shared your work with my art education professor who loved it and spread the word to his students. You are quite the inspiration. Thank you for letting us study you. Enjoy these photos.

Catie Miller”

Enjoy is an understatement.

Paint Marker on School Supplies • Private Collection

Any school supply of my students’ is a canvas of mine.

Paint Marker on Binder • 9″x12″ • Private Collection

Most artists, sooner or later, go through a drawing-bizarre-creatures-on-their-students’-binder phase. I’m no exception.

English Schoolgirls Reenvisioning my Artwork

As a middle school art teacher, I frequently introduce my students to the work of important artists and assign projects in their vain. Consequently, you can imagine how flattering, humbling and surreal it is to find out that students elsewhere are learning about me.

Here are a few of the annual snapshots that I receive from across the pond.

David Robinson • Main Line Times • November, 2008

The phrase “passing the torch” may bring to mind the vision of our ancestors moving through darkened caves, with tiring elders handing the flame of leadership to the next generation. In the art world, “passing the torch” might be thought of as the moment when ancient hands drawing beasts and visions on cave walls pause to take the torch from eager apprentices and hand them charcoal and umber to begin their artistic journey.

MilkBoy Coffee in heart of Ardmore, will be the site of such an exchange First Friday, Dec. 5 from 7 to 9:30 p.m. Welsh Valley Middle School’s charismatic art teacher, Todd Marrone, will be passing the torch to the young artist, Lower Merion senior Emmett DeMuzio. (more…)

Computer Embellished Drawing

A noodle-legged logo created for former students/future rock stars, The Rubber Knees.

Kristen A. Graham • Philadelphia Inquirer • February, 2007

Paints are plentiful in Todd Marrone’s modern Lower Merion classroom. Brushes? Pastels? Markers? Heavy, creamy paper? Available in abundance.

Unlike some art teachers, who struggle for resources to keep bare-bones programs afloat, Marrone and his colleagues at Welsh Valley Middle School in Narberth are lucky.

“The supplies are fabulous,” said Marrone, a Starburst-tossing, game-playing, enthusiastic teacher whose frenetic energy sometimes outstrips his students’.

But Marrone, who has been teaching art in Lower Merion for a decade, wanted his eighth-grade students to embark on an ambitious project, something that challenged their perceptions, made them think of art and of themselves in a different way. (more…)

Holly Love • Main Line Today Magazine • March, 2003

Give Todd Marrone an inch and he’ll decorate it. On this morning, the self-described “modern art revolutionary” begins at the Narberth train station. To most people, a train station is a place to catch trains. To Marrone, it’s an empty gallery awaiting exhibits. (more…)