Graduate Thesis Showcase: School of Fine Art Sculpture
Faux Atelier
by David Hugh Wagner
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HUGH DAVID WAGNER
TUESDAY 11:00 AM
OCTOBER 21, 2003
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
I was born three hundred miles due south of Chicago in Anderson, Indiana in 1947, the third of eight children to Catholic working-class parents. I can remember, as a third-grader at St. Mary's, being asked by the nuns to make colored chalk drawings of Biblical scenes on the blackboard. Our family moved to Bogalusa, Louisiana in 1957, across Lake Ponchartrain from New Orleans. I remember my father studying from the Famous Artists Course books, which I still own. After surviving as Yankees in the South for five years, we moved to California, settling in Vacaville and living in the 40'x8' house trailer we'd towed from Louisiana. Within half a year we found a suburban house in Fairfield, much to our joy and relief. During my junior year of high school we made our last move as a family to Oroville, near Chico, where I graduated. The following summer, while working for the Federal Forest Service, I seriously damaged my knee, making me ineligible for the draft and unavailable for the Vietnam War, much to my joy and relief.
After leaving home, I attended Yuba Community College, earning my A.A. in 1968. That summer I married and moved to Sebastopol to earn my B.A. in Studio Art at Sonoma State College. In the mid-seventies my wife and I moved back up to Yuba City and bought a house. There I built a pottery studio and ceramic kiln, becoming a production potter. L also invested four years to earn a Black Belt in Tang Soo Do, a Korean martial art. During this time I decided to earn a teaching credential at U. C. Sacramento. I subsequently taught sixth grade at nearby Yuba Gardens Intermediate School in Olivehurst for two years.
When my wife and I divorced in 1980 I took an extended road trip around the perimeter of the United States, logging 11,000 miles in my trusty V.W. Bus. Upon returning home, I decided that New Orleans was the place I wanted to be. Spending nearly the entire decade in the Crescent City, I worked in the Mardi Gras and convention industries. Creating huge 3-D objects and figures for parade floats and public events was my main occupation, but I also spent a number of years, as work permitted, studying at the New Orleans Academy of Art. There I met my second wife, with whom I shared a six-week trip to Europe, where she had spent twelve years of her early life. In late 1990 I returned with her to California, renting a small house in Monterey. Within two years that marriage also ended in divorce. During that time I worked as a wax detailer and mold-maker at Monterey Sculpture Center and created Mardi Gras-style "walking heads" for the Monterey Blues & Jazz Festivals and the Maritime Museum. For six of my eleven years in the Monterey Bay Area I worked at Santa Catalina School, designing and constructing theatre sets and mounting art shows in their gallery. For most of those years I also taught figure modeling for the Monterey Peninsula's off-campus program. For nine of those years I was a member of a weekly figure-drawing group with rotating leadership responsibilities. As a board member of Artist Equity's Central Coast Chapter I was instrumental in founding Arts Habitat, a proposed arts live/work community at Fort Ord which is now working with ArtSpace, a Minneapolis based nonprofit art space developer.
My years of physical labor in New Orleans and Monterey eventually damaged my lower back to the extent that I was unable to continue constructing theatre sets. Workers' Compensation consequently agreed to fund my first semester at the Academy's MFA program. However, my enrollment was postponed for more than a year while I underwent treatment for cancer at the base of my tongue. After successfully completing the required medical regimen and regaining my weight and health I was fortunate to secure a sculptural commission with Salinas Valley Memorial Hospital, complete it and move to San Francisco just in time for the start of Fall semester 2002. Since that time I have completed 30 units while earning a 3.9 GPA and garnering 2nd Place Best of Show MFA Sculpture Award at the 2003 Spring Show.
At that point, I decided to slow down a bit and earn the remaining 33 units of my MFA over a period of four semesters in order to gain the most of my graduate school experience. By the end of Fall 2003 I will need only two Metal Arts classes and the 18 units of Directed Study to complete my MFA degree. I am now in the process of applying for educational grants since I am now relying on Federally Insured Loans to pay for the remainder of my studies. I may investigate study-abroad funding so that I could spend the summer in Italy. So I may graduate in Fall 2004 or Spring 2005.
After graduation I hope to share my skills and love of sculpture by teaching figure modeling and related arts, perhaps here at the Academy of Art College. I also fervently wish to create unique and meritorious sculpture, of all sizes and scales, for decades to come.