Will Clipman is a poet, percussionist, maskmaker, storyteller, performing & recording artist and educator with over thirty-five years of experience as a teaching artist. He is a seven-time GRAMMY nominee, a three-time Native American Music Awards winner and a two-time Arizona Governor's Arts Award Nominee. Will has recorded over sixty albums, over thirty of those for the Native American music label Canyon Records, and he has toured regionally, nationally and internationally for twenty-five years. His publications include a book of poetry, Dog Light (Wesleyan University Press) and numerous anthologies and periodicals. Will's Myths & Masks, Planet of Percussion and In a Word workshops have been presented in libraries, assisted living centers, juvenile detention facilities, adult prisons, hospitals, art galleries, parks, resorts and retreat centers, most recently under the auspices of the Lifetime Arts Creative Aging initiative, and he has provided over two hundred Artist-in-Residency programs to elementary, middle and high schools as well as to colleges and universities. Will served as a Roster Artist-in-Education with the Arizona Commission on the Arts from 1980-2010, and continues to work in the field as a freelance arts educator. He has taught at the University of Arizona, Pima Community College, the Arizona State Prison, and Kino Psychiatric Hospital. Will holds a Bachelor of Arts degree from Syracuse University and a Master of Fine Arts degree from the University of Arizona. 

Great teachers are lifelong learners. Over the course of my thirty-five year career as a teaching artist, having worked with students literally from three to ninety-three, I have found some of my most brilliant, challenging and rewarding students to be those we charmingly refer to as senior citizens. Teaching has taught me that the creative spark is ageless, and the passion for new knowledge and awareness begins early in life and--properly nurtured--never dies. I have found that folks who have lived long, full lives bring a wealth of experience to art instruction, and possess the maturity, humility and fearlessness to embrace new creative challenges with a spirit of exploration and a joy of discovery. I want to continue my work with older adults not only to keep myself creatively engaged and inspired, but also to honor our elders as valuable, useful, contributing members of the community through meaningful art instruction.