Dave Wegener has been the Visual Arts instructor at Black Hills High School since it opened its doors in Summer 1997. 

Prior to that he taught Drawing, Art History and World History classes at Tumwater High School for his first year as an instructor (1996-97). 

He stole (with the manager's permission) an old Safeway shopping cart and stocked it with art supplies which he pushed to 5 different classrooms each day at Tumwater.  (He still has the cart in the studio at Black Hills.)

Before becoming a "teacher," Mr. Wegener (pronounced "WEH-guh-NER" or "WEG-NER" or if you put the German in gear, "VAY-guh-NUR" ) worked as a picture framer, a one-hour portrait photographer, a chemical plant operator, a cryogenic trailer mechanic, a contractor's assistant, an auto auction driver, an air conditioning-refrigeration-air-compressor mechanic, a warehouse shipping & receiving clerk, a Shakey's pizzeria chef, a Dairy Queen fry cook & soda jerk, and a delivery boy.

He was born and raised in the northern suburbs of Denver, Colorado, but has lived elsewhere ever since joining the US Air Force the year after he graduated from Northglenn High School (1982).

Mr. Wegener feels privileged and grateful to work in and care for a generously designed facility that allows creative, meaningful and memorable work with young people.

The business strategy of his work often changes, but Wegener's goals remain constant: 1) Give kids choices.  2) Let their work serve a "real" purpose. and 3) Give them the chance to show off what they accomplish.   These goals make Dave Wegener see himself more as a project manager, facilitator or guide than as a traditional "teacher."  Although he gladly helps kids with their smaller, more personal and private projects and studies, many of his students know his heart lies with larger collaborative projects that go beyond the classroom for others to experience and enjoy for years to come.

Experiences and influences that shaped Dave Wegener's artistic interests include:

• being an excellent drawer/copier of Snoopy in early grade school 
• teaching himself to draw cartoon characters from one of those large paperback Walter Foster books that cost 25 cents at the drug store 
• creating countless unique love notes to grade school sweethearts
• being regarded by fellow classmates as one of the school's "best drawers"
• winning coloring contests, science fairs, and regional art competitions
• making up for being a bad social studies and literature student by adding illustrations to his assignments that impressed his teachers
• lagging behind his parents at art & craft displays to watch the artists do their thing in their vending booths
• spending more time at Disneyland studying how the park was made than seeing the attractions
• having a 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Jane Ulrich (whom he still writes to) who loved to have her students make art in the classroom

 (Wegener is 3rd from the left in back)

• teaching himself to carve and assemble leather to make unique useable items: belts, wallets, purses, sheaths, covers, etc.
• being involved with performance groups: band (alto sax), church choir, school choir, district honor choir, talent show, musicals, plays, camps, etc.
• having a 9th grade teacher, Mr. Daryl Habgood, who let him spend the year creating a mural above the library doorway (that remained there for over 20 years)
• taking in countless TV episodes of drawing and painting lessons from Noel & Andy, Bill Alexander and Bob Ross
• watching the same movies and cartoons over and over again to observe how they were made
• having a dad who worked in print shops that revealed how art is made to be photographed, reproduced and printed
• living amidst amazing scenery where the Rockies meet the Great Plains
• choosing to take vocational classes from Mrs. Ruth Knapp in the commercial/graphic arts that used pre-computer methods to make art for a customer
• caring about the presentation of food and the cleanliness/organization of the space in which it is prepared
• working on art ideas for customers and future personal projects in the margins of his college notes and on the backs of any papers available
• framing art for customers who often didn't consider how they were going to hang it until after it was made
• professors and mentors like Robert Allen Jensen, Bob Embry, David Templeton, Fred Sodt, Michael Davenport, Ed Bereal, Lloyd Blakley, Gene Vike, Tom Johnston, Pat McCormick and Perry Mills who made their own art, invited him into their worlds, and directed him to artists he could identify with and learn from 
• learning about art and artists NOT on the professors' syllabi but whom he identified with: Jim Dine, Jasper Johns, Chuck Close, Wayne Thiebaud, Hans Hoffman, Claes Oldenburg, Richard Diebenkorn, Larry Rivers, etc.

Passage.  Jasper Johns.  Oil and mixed media on three canvases.  1962.

• marrying into a family who really respected and appreciated the artist's work as work
• exercising the privilege of allowing his own children to learn through open sources and self-direction
• being a fan of old movies and how they were made: Laurel & Hardy, Buster Keaton, Frank Capra, James Stewart, Orson Wells, Charlie Chaplin, W.C. Fields, Marx Bros...

  Poster from Way Out West.  One of Laurel & Hardy's finest films and, not surprisingly, one of the few feature length films Stan Laurel got to write and produce himself.  This film showcased everything that was great about the two of them without having to sustain the comedy elements for too long (something the two of them were very concerned about amidst the 1930's switch from short films to features).