A Personal History of My Art Education Wyatt A. Schultz January 11, 2014 I always loved to draw.

Unfortunately none of my early art work survived. I would pencil draw dogs, horses, and even try drawing peoples faces as early as age eight and nine. I was the child in school that had a lot of doodling on their workbook. I also liked to trace images. In 5th grade (1965) my teacher was Mr. Bob Golnitz who was also the principal and taught grades 5 8 in our three-room Lutheran school in Long Prairie, MN. He taught all of the subjects to all four grades and loved perspective drawing. He would take a yard stick and chalk and make these awesome drawings of buildings and doors and windows that came alive on the blackboard. He taught one-point and two-point perspective to the 5th and 6th grade, than in 7th and 8th he would introduce 3-point perspective and we would then find magazine photos to copy, or go out side or sit in the hallway or church and draw with our pencil and ruler. That was so fun! In high school I was in art class for a month. I do not remember any details, but I was talked out of staying in art and transferred to choir where I stayed all four years of high school. I do not remember doing much of any art during high school. In my sophomore year Concordia College, St Paul (1979) I was not sure what I wanted to do as a career. There was an art class called Sculpture taught by Professor Rickols available as an elective in my schedule. Once in the class we could use any kind of medium and tools and equipment in the sculpture studio. Since I had done woodwork as a boy in 4H and took a metals/welding class in high school I knew how to work with wood and metal. No one else in the class knew anything about welding so I had that equipment to myself. That semester was a blast! The following year I wanted to take another art class and Pottery 1 was being offered. Well the rest is history as they say. I took all the available Pottery classes and any other 3D art classes available. I remember Dr. Marxhausen and Professor Rickols only. I took one Art History class that was so boring to me; I could hardly attend. It was the lowest grade I received in college, a D. I do know, the medium is what got me hooked. I was creating art. I took enough art classes for a B.A. degree in Elementary Education with a concentration in Art. I was ready to teach art in an elementary school, so I was told. That was the last formal art education classes I ever took. Since then, my art teaching development was through journals, art magazines, trial and error, and recently through Internet

searches, primarily YouTube. I attended teacher conferences where sectionals were art teacher specific. There were not may of those. I taught art for 9 years and then earned a M.A. in Educational Administration. I was principal of three elementary schools in three Midwest states from 1987 until 2000. During which time I taught no art classes, but learned about and expanded my understanding of computer education. In 2000 I was called to my current school as Technology Coordinator and Computer Teacher. During the next 8 years I developed a complete course combining art and technology called Computer Graphics and Animation. I used free shareware software discovered on the Internet. The programs I incorporated were DoGA L1 and Terragen. DoGA was a 3D modeling and rendering software program that allowed the user to create very complex, fully-articulated, and textured, colored objects, and put into motion through a sophisticated environment also designed by the user. Terragen created virtual Earth-like landscapes in 3D and then allowed the user to fly through these environments taking a movie of the experience. It was a really cool program that was used in video game backgrounds for years even though it was shareware. In 2008 I was asked to teach one semester of Ceramics I because the current art teachers schedule was full. Since then my schedule has grown rapidly each year, now filling my day with Ceramics/Pottery classes. I consider myself more of an artist than an art teacher. I use my skills to coach students into developing their artistic abilities with clay. When I taught elementary art I spent a lot of time in School Arts and Art and Activities magazine trying to find ideas. My art education was mostly trial and error, but it was fun.