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About Colin Schildhauer

Education

 

-San Francisco State University, San Francisco, Single Subject High School Teaching Credential (ART) 2023 — (currently pursuing) 

 

-University of Tasmania, Hobart Tasmania, Australia 2019— Master of Fine Arts (Professional Practice)

 

-University of California Santa Cruz  2013— Bachelor of Arts in Art (Painting focus)

 

Born and raised in Goleta California, the mountains and beaches of the Gaviota coastline played a central role in my inspiration for creating art. In my teens, under the tutelage of local plein air painter John Iwerks, I was introduced to painting with oils while also developing a great passion for capturing the ephemerality of light in the outdoors. Whether its studying refracting light through the lips of crashing waves or meditating on the gnarled branches of an oak tree, while painting on location I feel my senses elevate. I strive to express these experiences through my work while also preserving images of beautiful yet slowly vanishing natural landscapes.

 

Dovetailed with my love for art is my love for the ocean where surfing has led to coastal explorations from Baja California through Oregon, as well as Hawaii, Central America, Indonesia, Fiji, New Zealand, and Australia. After high school I attended Santa Barbara Community College to nurture my creative growth in the visual arts while pursuing my career as a competitive surfer. My experience at SBCC bolstered my fundamentals in art as I navigated classes practicing an array of mediums including figuring drawing, oil painting, sculpture, as well as a multitude of art history classes. In 2010 one of my paintings was purchased for SBCC's permanent collection and in 2011 I transferred to the University of California Santa Cruz where I found myself surrounded by a cohort of enthusiastic artists and my first studio. While attending UCSC under the guidance of professors Melissa Gwyn, Peter Loftus, Paul Rangell and others, I was encouraged to think critically of my practice that further solidified my devotion to a pursuit in the arts. I graduated from UCSC in 2013 with a Bachelors of Fine Arts Degree. 

 

Shortly after graduating I had a serendipitous opportunity to teach English in Japan. I've always been inspired by eastern aesthetics, particularly Japan's printing methods of ukiyo-e, and painting styles found in nihonga. This opportunity was a great way to expand my interests in Japanese culture and art while also learning the ins and outs of becoming a teacher. After living in Kikuna a small suburb of Yokohama for over a year and a half I created over 2 dozen oil paintings and drawings of various sizes that reflected my experiences while also fostering a new found passion for teaching. After returning to California I acquired a TESOL (Teaching English to Speakers of Other Languages) certification from the University of California Santa Barbara in 2015.

 

In 2018 I returned to school to pursue a master’s program at the University of Tasmania in Australia. This was a life changing experience that afforded me the resources and support to experiment and challenge my practice as an artist immersed in a new environment down under. For my masters program I developed a project that was based around the current deforestation of a temperate rainforest in Tasmania’s northwest called the Tarkine. This project documented my experiences in the Tarkine through field studies that I used to create a 16 paneled polyptych that juxtaposed pristine rainforest with human intervention through a narrative depicting the process of clear-felling old growth forest and its exportation as wood-chips. The goal of this project was to raise awareness to the detrimental impact deforestation has on an ecosystems, particularly Tasmania's irreplaceable temperate rainforest of the Tarkine.

 

 After graduating from UTAS with an MFA 2019 and Covid catching the world by storm, I found myself living in Tasmania 2 years longer than I had previously expected and soon found myself working as an art teacher at the Nolan School of Art in Salamanca Hobart. This enabled me to teach art to a diverse demographic of children and adults while constructing classes that focused on an array of mediums, techniques, and tools. Here I found my calling as an art teacher and began developing a plan to acquire a single subject high school teaching credential upon my return to California. 

I'm now half-way through a single subject art teaching credential at San Francisco State University where i'm teaching high school visual and digital arts at Ruth Asawa School of the Arts on weekdays and exploring the rugged coastlines and mountains with my paints on weekends.

In 2016 I became a member of S.C.A.P.E (Southern California Artists Painting for the Environment). S.C.A.P.E is an awesome organization of artists that exhibit their work to help raise money to preserve open land while raising awareness to environmental conservation. You can check out the S.C.A.P.E web site here ​www.s-c-a-p-e.org.

-In 2023 I became a member of the SCAPE Board in charge of monthly paint-outs.

In 2016 I also juried into the Goleta Valley Art Association where I exhibit work alongside local artists in my hometown of Goleta. You can view the Goleta Valley Art Association's website here www.tgvaa.org

In 2017 I was juried into the Santa Barbara Art Association. The SBAA has provided me with the opportunity to meet and exhibit work alongside an array local artists working in various styles and mediums. You can view SBAA's website here www.sbartassoc.org

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