Embedded Files
At Pioneer High School, the students and staff are well aware of the many teachers who are present on campus. They teach a variety of things and have worked at the school for varying amounts of time. When one of the art teachers, Jilene Burch, retired this year, many have wondered who would step up to the plate and take over her spot. That title goes to Renee Converse. While she may be new, she has lots of passion to bring, so the Pioneer Post has asked her to do an interview for everyone to get to know her better.
A simple, yet important question began the interview: “What motivated you to become a teacher?” Converse’s answer was seeing the students.
The opportunity that brought her to the school was more of a coincidence than a deliberate decision. Before she started working as a teacher, she became a professional artist and started an art studio in Davis. She learned about Pioneer High’s open position through the art network, and that was when she got the chance to become an art teacher.
It may come off as a shock to some, but Converse had actually wanted to become a teacher farther into the future. She explained that “this was something I was thinking about doing in ten years or something.” Because of this, when she got the offer to teach at Pioneer she didn’t mind straying from her original plans.
She went on to discuss what her first experience in the classroom was like: “I actually sat in a few of these classes to see if it was something that I thought would be a good fit for me and a good fit for the students and I loved it. I loved it immediately.”
At the moment, she instructs five periods of two classes: Art & Culture and Color & Design. While she continues to enjoy seeing the students’ personalities come to life, her passion for art is another reason that keeps her going. She still paints and hosts art shows to this day. In fact, Sac State recently acquired three of her larger, six-foot paintings for one of these shows.
She also talked about her favorite art mediums. She said, “I love sculpting and I love ceramics, but my heart and soul is painting and drawing.”
On the topic of favorite artists, Converse narrowed down her list to a few. The first she mentioned was Gustav Climt. She also shared her love of Wassily Kandinsky’s art, commenting that “his work is more angular which is a lot of fun for me.” That being said, Clyfford Still is her all time favorite.
It’s no secret that Converse loves art, so she uses those feelings to her advantage as she encourages her students to pursue their own creative journey. One of the things that inspire her to keep on teaching is the hope that she “can instill maybe a small amount of my passion into somebody else’s world,” even if the student in question hasn’t considered an interest in art before. In Converse’s eyes, her greatest strengths are both her passion for art and her dedication to “bringing people together” and “creating a community” through public arts.
She added that she felt welcomed by not only her classes’ students, but the staff and administration as well. Especially with the difficult situation her students had “dealing with subs the entire year” and having “somebody different every week,” she sensed that they embraced having a consistent teacher at last.
With the interview being close to concluded, the last question was whether she has any final thoughts she’d like to share. This was how she responded:
“I’d like to say that this school is filled with really cool, creative people, and I can’t wait to see what else the rest of the students can bring creatively to the school. I love it here.”
Gustav Klimt
Wassily Kandisky
Clyfford Still
Page updated
Report abuse