DAVID FREDERICK WEGENER - Visual Arts Instructor/Facilitator

Dave Wegener  

Dave Wegener has been a Visual Arts instructor/facilitator at Black Hills since it opened in 1997.
He's been an artist, singer, musician, mechanic, craftsman, tinkerer, and facilitator for most of his life.

His career as a full-time high school began in 1996 at Tumwater HS teaching two world history, one art history and two art classes.  

For that first year, he shared an "office" made out of a library reading room with another new teacher, Mrs. Julie McBride, who is now a counselor at THS.  

He had a different classroom for each of his classes around THS, and he used a "borrowed" grocery cart with a bicycle flag on it haul supplies to each room.  

His classes have taken many forms since 1996, and for myriad reasons, such as educational trends, student needs, school needs, and ideas from personal or professional growth as an artist and instructor. 

Each experience in the classroom - in the studio - informs him of what works, what doesn't, and what matters.

 

Wegener is well aware of the fact that producing anything of significant quality takes time.

A culture obsessed with convenient distractions, mixed with the regimentation of school, a classroom of students that has grown from 20 to 30, and class periods that have shrunk from over 90 minutes to less than 50 and 40, makes any creative, labor-intensive productivity more challenging...  but not impossible.

Despite these challenges, most students still produce quality artworks to exhibit with the time they have.  

Some seize every minute of class time to do in the studio what they cannot do in other classes (or at home). 

It's a good sign of quality when students cannot stop admiring their own creative work.

They want to show it to their friends.  They want to keep it.  They want to take it home.

 

Wegener assigns and models tasks that working artists would choose to do or be expected to do:

     ·  practice drawing from life (by keeping a sketchbook or visual diary/journal),

     ·  produce original art (When you must "borrow" ideas, do the right thing, and credit your sources.),

     ·  present finished work (with display information) to an audience, and

     ·  respond to viewers' (i.e. the customers') feedback.

 

Wegener designates maximum class time and space for students to work on their art.

He gives prompts, sets parameters, demonstrates, and offers guidance to help students get started.

He believes that emulation is one of the best ways to learn how to do something.

Wegener's role is like a manager, facilitator, waiter, and "artist in residence" for students to observe and ask questions.

Similarly, the more productive art students in each class provide role models and discourse for create activity.

It is always the students' responsibility to decide what to do with the time they are given.

 

"I believe people's most memorable and meaningful learning experiences come from two things:  1) hands-on, tactile, physical experiences and 2) self-direction."  "You can lead a horse to water, but a pencil must be lead."  - Stan Laurel

 

 

 

 

 

 Dave Wegener's Life Outside of Facilitating a High School Art Program

 

 

Mrs. Jane Ulrich's 4th Grade Class - 1973-74, Wyco Drive Elementary School, Northglenn, CO
(Wegener is in the back row, 3rd from the left.)

Dave Wegener's Education

HS Diploma - Northglenn HS, CO (1979-82), 2-yr 1/2-day concentration in Graphic/Commercial Arts with Voc-Ed Center, 2nd place @ state VICA

 

1997-PRESENT - Visual Arts Instructor, Black Hills HS