FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Sheboygan, WI — Sheboygan North High School and Sheboygan South High School are pleased to announce that they will be working in tandem to introduce students and staff to the world of art beyond the classroom walls in their Artist in Residence Program.
L to R: Frank Juarez and Brian Sommersberger
Sheboygan North created its Artist in Residency Program in 2014 under the leadership of art teacher, Frank Juarez. Based on his observations, he noticed many of his colleagues were implementing strategies to teach course concepts via art production, students were given an outlet to express themselves and to demonstrate what they were learning in their classes. Through several conversations with colleagues and administration, he asked, “What if we created our own artist in residency program that would provide more creative outlets and resources to students and staff?” This school year, it will be entering its 5th year of implementing this program in to the culture of Sheboygan North.
Sheboygan South has a new art teacher, Brian Sommersberger. Sommersberger is coming from Wilson Elementary. During his four years at Wilson, he has created some of his own art programs such as the Visiting Artist Program. When he expressed that he wanted to start an artist in residency program at South, Juarez offered guidance. Both high schools will provide this program at their respective school, operating with their own ideas of how they envision this program to look like for their students and staff.
Sheboygan North and South kick off the 2018/2019 school year with Kim Nugent, artist journals, and Patty Aker, silk painter, respectively. Both artists be working in their own art studios within the schools, working with students and staff as well as making their own artwork.
About Patty Aker
Patty Aker has a passion for design, painting and textiles. Her esthetic leans towards modern, abstract and colorful compositions, reflecting nature’s tessellations. She enjoys creating with an organic slant, focusing on the environment while employing different techniques to build on texture with various paints and resists. The result belies the simplicity of her craft. Occasionally, she includes a written word or her favorite poetry to complete a piece.
Her love of fashion and sewing naturally draws her to fiber. Silk is her canvas; it is a very forgiving medium. Colors evolve intensely to produce the drama she wants in the fabric. Painting on silk is such an exciting experience. The paints are uncontrollable upon touching the silk and take on a life of their own, swirling, pushing, and merging into amazing contortions of vibrant color. The dye flow is tamed by various methods and the result is always a visual, textural surprise.
Aker has exhibited in many juried shows, group and solo shows. Venues include U.W. Sheboygan, Plymouth Art Center, St. Nicholas Hospital, Inspiration Studios, the Thelma Sadoff Center for the Arts, Latitude Art, Sheboygan Visual Artists, Lakeshore Art Supplies, and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Denmark, Acrylic on silk, 18 x 19 inches, 2017. Image courtesy of the artist.
About Kim Nugent
Kim Nugent’s method of journaling often involves utilizing a picture as a starting point to spark an idea. She chooses photos that she likes and surprisingly, dislikes. Her purpose is to develop ideas, explore techniques, and to push her creativity. Working this way jumpstarts her imagination, rendering a visual journal page that would have been hard to conceive using merely a blank sheet of paper.
Visual journaling has become something that Nugent feels compelled to do. It helps her to be calm, centered and focused. Through visual journaling she expresses herself with or without words. In her journals: she experiments with different mediums and techniques; documents important events or simple daily happenings; expresses her thoughts and feelings; draw, paint or collage. She has no rules.
Spiraling from My Center, Collage, 9 x 11 inches, 2014. Image courtesy of the artist.
About Sheboygan North High School
The mission of Sheboygan North High Art Department is to create and nurture a learning environment that will stimulate risk-taking, originality, and collaboration through the use of 21st Century Skills in both studio practice and communication.
Frank Juarez is the art department chair at Sheboygan North High School. He is actively involved in local, regional, state, and national arts organization such as the Wisconsin Art Education Association, and the National Art Education Association. He has served as a board member in the following organizations: Milwaukee Artist Resource Network, Arts Wisconsin, and the Cedarburg Cultural Center. He is the founder/former director of the Sheboygan Visual Artists. In 2011, he has opened his first art gallery, the Frank Juarez Gallery in Sheboygan and has relocated to Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He has presented at local universities, colleges, galleries, and artist groups on the Business of Art | Art of Business. He is the founder of two projects focused on contemporary art and art education called The Midwest Artist Studios and the 365 Artists 365 Days Project. In 2015, he was awarded the 2015 Wisconsin Art Education Association Teacher of the Year and in 2016, he was awarded the 2016 National Art Education Association Wisconsin Art Educator of the Year, joined the faculty of the Vermont College of Fine Arts, joined SchoolArts Magazine as a contributing editor, and co-founded the Randall Frank Contemporary Art Collection Artist Grant Program. Recently, he has been elected to serve on the National Art Education Foundation Board of Trustees and has been awarded the Herb Kohl Educational Foundation 2018 Teacher Fellows Award.
About Sheboygan South High School
The Sheboygan South High School Art Department believes that art inspires students to be creative and express their feelings and thoughts through visual creation. For many students’ art has given them an area of success and expression that otherwise would be missing from their education. The art department teaches students using a Discipline Based Art Education philosophy. The content of this instruction focuses art aesthetics, criticism, history and production. These disciplines help students understand the value of art and the different processes and techniques for creating art.
Brian Sommersberger received his art education degree from Silver Lake College receiving teaching certificates in Art Education and Adaptive Art Education. In 2017, he completed the Sheboygan Area School District Teacher Development Institute through Lakeland University.
He has taught art at Wilson Elementary school (2014-2018), elementary and middle school art for Random Lake School District (2009-2014) and currently high school art at Sheboygan South High School. He is also the advisor for the Art Scream program and the South High Drum Line.
Sommersberger served on the Wisconsin Art Education Association board as the North East Regional Vice-President from 2011 to 2013. In 2015, he received the Outstanding Art Educator- Elementary Division Award through WAEA. He has worked with artists in the Kohler Art Industry program along with volunteering at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center.
Looking Ahead
Sheboygan North will be hosting Craig Grabhorn, printmaker and Sheboygan South will be hosting Della Nohl, photographer, in the Spring of 2019.
For further information on this program, please email fjuarez@sasd.net or call 920.559.7181.
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