Gino Molfino is an artist, educator, advocate, collaborator, reflective observer, and creative problem solver. Across more than 25 years in public school arts education and leadership, he has woven together art making, policy, professional learning, and community-building as interconnected practices. His work brings together studio practice and program leadership - grounded in the belief that when teachers are supported as artists, schools become stronger, more creative places for students to learn.
As the Coordinator of comprehensive preK–12 Fine Arts for the Howard County Public School System, Gino approaches curriculum as a living framework shaped by dialogue, reflection, and shared inquiry. He believes creativity is not simply a skill set, but a way of being - elastic, relational, and rooted in both structure and experimentation. He believes art education begins with helping students find their own voice and grows into understanding how their work connects to others. He supports teachers in building classrooms where big ideas and strong skills develop together. Through professional learning communities, coaching structures, and policy work, he designs conditions where teachers build creative confidence, take instructional risks, and see themselves as makers, researchers, and leaders.
A practicing artist, Gino continually explores the space between artist | educator | collaborator. His studio practice and leadership philosophy are reciprocal - each informing the other. As a Fulbright-Hays Award recipient, his study of contemporary Latin American performance art and culture in Mexico City deepened his commitment to culturally responsive practice, global perspective, and art as embodied inquiry. For him, making is a disciplined process of observation, dialogue, revision, and purposeful problem-solving that moves ideas forward.
Gino has helped guide arts education efforts at the district, state, and national levels. He currently serves as Director-Elect of the Supervision & Administration Division of the National Art Education Association and is a past President of the Maryland Art Education Association. He has also served on Maryland’s Governor’s Fine Arts Advisory Council, where he advocated for equitable access to the arts, strong contemporary practice, and clear pathways into the profession. His contributions have been recognized with the National Art Education Association Supervision/Administration Art Educator of the Year Award (2021), Eastern Region Art Educator of the Year (2020), Maryland Art Educator of the Year (2019), the Howard County Arts Council’s Leadership in the Arts Award (2022), and induction as a Maryland Art Education Association Distinguished Fellow (2024), among other national recognitions.
Grounded in curiosity and sustained by collaboration, Gino believes that artistic communities thrive when reflection fuels action and connection fuels insight. For him, art making, teaching, and leadership are not separate endeavors but mutually informing practices - each a way of building more responsive, imaginative, and human-centered educational spaces.