After completing her M.F.A at Penn State University, Pat Hutchinson, Belmar, taught art for ten years at (then) Trenton State College, as well as at Mercer and Ocean County Community Colleges. During the 1970s and 80s she developed a series of dance paintings, working with the Twyla Tharp and Jose Limon companies, as well as student dancers, and showing her work in New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania.
An invitation to teach design in the Department of Industrial Education at the College of New Jersey stimulated an interest in the creative process as it extends beyond the world of art, which led to a Ph.D. in Design and Technology Education at New York University. As a Fulbright Scholar at Oxford University, UK, she carried out dissertation research on British Design Education. Upon her return to the US, she co-founded and edited TIES Magazine (circulation 50,000), a design education publication for teachers, published first at Drexel University and then at the College of New Jersey, where she continued to teach design until 2008. Dr. Hutchinson served as Curriculum Director for two National Science Foundation Projects from 1991-98, and as Principal Investigator/Project Director of NSF’s Children Designing and Engineering Project from 1999 to 2005. Dr. Hutchinson is co-founder of the 501c3 Belmar Arts Council, on whose Board she served as Chair for four years and Vice-chair for two years, while also serving for six years on the Board of the Algonquin Arts Theatre, Manasquan. She is currently a member of the Belmar Public Library Board and is the President of the NJ Fulbright Association. She is a figurative painter and has directed many community arts initiatives and mural projects.