It has been said that those who can’t do, teach.
Try telling that to Thad McCauley.
Or, to shirk that archaic notion without the bumbling hindrance of conversation, simply take a peak at McCauley’s work currently on display at the gallery at Downtown Aurora Visual Arts. Wrapped in cherry red frames, the four pieces in his “Kookaburra” series, poetically named “Flip,” “Rip,” “Chip” and “Drip,” are kaleidoscopic digital drawings with iridescent primary colors that effectively reel in retinas like some sort of twisted, visual Mad Hatter. Their triply enchantment certainly gives off the vibe of a pH below seven.
McCauley, a middle school art teacher at Aurora Frontier P-8, is one of 28 local art teachers with work on display at the DAVA gallery on Florence Street as a part of the organization’s annual Aurora Public Schools Art Educators’ Exhibit, set to open to the public on Jan. 23.
“(The show) really lines up a nice collaboration, and it’s something myself and many of the Aurora art teachers look forward to and create new work for every year,” McCauley said.
Now in its 15th year and seventh at DAVA, the APS Educator’s Exhibit offers local art teachers the rare opportunity to have their myriad and varied works displayed in a professional gallery setting.
“Many of them have their own body of work that rarely gets shown in a professional setting,” said Susan Jenson, executive director of DAVA. “And one of the driving forces behind our gallery is that it truly is meant to be a community space so that the community can be introduced to professional artists, and this is an opportunity for everyone to look at art work produced by the professionals teaching their kids.”
Arts teachers from nearly every APS school and in charge of students spanning the age gamut of kindergarten to high school seniors are participating in this year’s exhibit.
Working to creatively flesh out student ideas a minimum of 40 hours a week can be a draining task, according to McCauley, but having at least one guaranteed place to annually display his work motivates him to continue to produce his own art.
“It’s a catch-22 making art every day with students because the reason we all got into it is our passion for the arts and making art for other people,” he said. “But the reality is when you’re giving creative energy to these students after a 40-hour work week, the art you’re making yourself can get in kind of a lull. But when you have a deadline and motivation — like a show like this — it’s reason enough, and that’s why I’ve done it for this long.”
McCauley has participated in the show since he began working for APS 14 years ago and remembers the show’s early days, prior to being hosted by DAVA, when it was held wherever space was available, such as the Aurora History Museum or an APS boardroom.
Electicism, related to both the locations and the art itself, has defined the show since its inception. In this year’s exhibit, nearly every medium — from painted wood work to jewelry — is on display.
“Usually we have shows based on themes, but this is a bit more eclectic,” said Viviane Le Courtois, the DAVA program manager who has hung the show’s pieces since it has been held at DAVA.
Students are invited to the exhibit’s opening reception every year, which both Le Courtois and Jenson said gives young art enthusiasts a chance to see their teachers in a non-school environment and experience the work they do outside of the classroom.
“It’s a really good opportunity for students to see what their teachers are doing outside of school and the professional merit of their work,” Le Courtois said.
Deborah Nolasco, an art instructor at nearby Boston K-8, added that the show offers her the chance to introduce DAVA to students who may benefit from the nonprofit’s many youth programs.
“I try to hand out invite cards to students at my school who would benefit not only from seeing my work, but from seeing where and what DAVA is,” she said. “It’s so great to have a show that’s so close, where you don’t have to go all the way to the Denver Art Museum to see quality art.”
Nearly all the pieces on display at APS Educators’ Exhibit are available for sale, including a handful of modest, four-by-four-inch paintings on a table in the back of the gallery. For the third consecutive year, art educators created dozens of small works to be sold at the show in an effort to raise money for the A.J. Boik Memorial Scholarship fund, which raises funds to send area students to the Rocky Mountain College of Art and Design. The scholarship was created in 2012 in honor of Gateway High School graduate A.J. Boik, a victim of the Aurora theater shooting, who was planning on studying art education at RMCAD.
“Helping with this scholarship was just a cathartic way to manage that grief,” Nolasco said.
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