This article explores how new materialism can help conceive of art education practice as research. The discussion is organized in three parts. First, the authors examine how a practicing artist talks about materials as an aspect of creative artmaking experiences. The second section introducees new materialist concepts for thinking about the power of things in art education. For these concepts, the authors pull from thinkers who offer vocabularies that can be useful for infusing a materialist orientation into artistic inquiries. The final section considers the application of new materialist methods in two different sites for inquiry in the visual arts: a school art classroom and a museum gallery.