International Journal of Education & the Arts

Citation: Holt, A. (2025). Richard Mayhew: Lessons in interdisciplinarity. International Journal of Education & the Arts, 26(24). http://doi.org/10.26209/ijea26n24

Notable Afro-Indigenous artist and interdisciplinary educator, Richard Mayhew (1924–2024), is known for his landscape paintings (which he refers to as “mindscapes”), and his involvement in the 1960s artist collective Spiral. His extensive teaching record includes fourteen years at the Pennsylvania State University from 1977 to 1991. Mayhew’s interdisciplinary teaching approach is deeply aligned with his Afro-Indigenous sensibilities resisting Eurocentrism and its oppressive, categorical structures; it aligns with agency and processes of creative continuation. This study, provoked by questioning the archive, draws from the archives and conversations with Mayhew about how his lived experiences and background influenced and informed his perspectives on interdisciplinary knowledge, art making, teaching and pedagogy. It concludes by theorizing interdisciplinarity and its possibilities for art education.