Finding Her Voice
Leslie Chappelle
Issue date: 10/22/01 Section: News
- Page 1 of 1
Katrina Wagner first brought her teaching expertise to COM in the 1970’s, instructing classes in English composition and inter-disciplinary humanities at IVC. A decade later she was a permanent fixture on Kentfield campus, teaching watercolor, drawing, painting and 2-D design.
“I love teaching!” Wagner exclaimed during a recent interview. “My greatest success at the end of a class is to see that each student has expressed himself or herself differently. In English studies that’s called finding one’s own voice.”
As an artist Wagner has several different timbres. She creates realistic landscapes, portraits, and designs radical conceptual textile sculptures, frequently using steel either as armature or structure. Combining steel with soft, sensual, feminine fabrics like satin, tulle, velvet and organza---“fabrics of the boudoir,” as Wagner refers to them, enables her to create unique and startling work.
Poetry is another of her mediums. She develops mixed media installations, integrating objects with poetry.
Wagner’s steel and soft fabric sculptures were shown this year in both the Hayward Arts Commission Gallery and the Broadway Window Project in Oakland. Her Realistic Landscapes series was shown by the Mill Valley Arts Commission.
Wagner served as Chair of the COM Art Department for two academic years, 1999-2001.
Her leadership extends into weekends when she leads nature hikes as a volunteer naturalist with the National Park Service at the Marin Headlands.
This semester Wagner is teaching 2-D Art Fundamentals, Drawing and Life Painting. She also instructs
Advanced Critique, a course she designed for intermediate and advanced students in all the art disciplines.
This once a month evening seminar includes a broad spectrum of techniques important in the professional art world. How to write an artist’s statement, an art review, how to analyze work objectively and how to market one’s art, are a few of the techniques.
Each of her students has work analyzed by Wagner as well as by guest lecturers drawn from the art faculty. Art theory discussions are held on lively topics such as post-modernism and craft as art.
During the 2001 Faculty Show Wagner showcased three of her conceptual textile sculptures. They were a a testament to the humor, knowledge and teaching expertise she has continuously provided students at COM.
“I love teaching!” Wagner exclaimed during a recent interview. “My greatest success at the end of a class is to see that each student has expressed himself or herself differently. In English studies that’s called finding one’s own voice.”
As an artist Wagner has several different timbres. She creates realistic landscapes, portraits, and designs radical conceptual textile sculptures, frequently using steel either as armature or structure. Combining steel with soft, sensual, feminine fabrics like satin, tulle, velvet and organza---“fabrics of the boudoir,” as Wagner refers to them, enables her to create unique and startling work.
Poetry is another of her mediums. She develops mixed media installations, integrating objects with poetry.
Wagner’s steel and soft fabric sculptures were shown this year in both the Hayward Arts Commission Gallery and the Broadway Window Project in Oakland. Her Realistic Landscapes series was shown by the Mill Valley Arts Commission.
Wagner served as Chair of the COM Art Department for two academic years, 1999-2001.
Her leadership extends into weekends when she leads nature hikes as a volunteer naturalist with the National Park Service at the Marin Headlands.
This semester Wagner is teaching 2-D Art Fundamentals, Drawing and Life Painting. She also instructs
Advanced Critique, a course she designed for intermediate and advanced students in all the art disciplines.
This once a month evening seminar includes a broad spectrum of techniques important in the professional art world. How to write an artist’s statement, an art review, how to analyze work objectively and how to market one’s art, are a few of the techniques.
Each of her students has work analyzed by Wagner as well as by guest lecturers drawn from the art faculty. Art theory discussions are held on lively topics such as post-modernism and craft as art.
During the 2001 Faculty Show Wagner showcased three of her conceptual textile sculptures. They were a a testament to the humor, knowledge and teaching expertise she has continuously provided students at COM.