Featured Artists: Teacher Edition A deep dive into Paly teachers’ creative outlets
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ost students associate their teachers solely with the classes they teach and don’t think of the activities they do and numerous talents they have. At Paly, many teachers have special and impressive hobbies outside of teaching that are a significant part of their life such as cooking, refurbishing items, ceramics, painting and drawing and crafting surfboards.
Steven Ferrera: For ceramics and sculpture teacher Steven Ferrera, art is more than just a creative outlet. He has been an artist his entire life and decided to pursue the art of sculpting in college, earning his bachelor’s degree from University of California, Santa Cruz and his master’s degree from San Jose State University. Before teaching at Paly, Ferrera worked in an animation studio and ran a glass blowing studio. Through woodworking with his dad, Fererra had his first defining introduction to art. “My dad had a really big garage woodshop,” Ferrera said. “It started out as my granddad’s....that’s where I hung out when I was a kid.” He would go out into the woodshop to spend time with his grandfather who was often already there to escape the stress of his everyday life. “That was his little sanctuary, and I would go hang out with him and watch him build birdhouses,” Ferrera said. Ferrrera culminated an enjoyment of working with different tools and being able to watch his grandfather precisely create works out of wood. “I liked the tools, opening cabinets and seeing all sorts of random tools,” Ferrera said. “They fascinated me. I wanted to know what they did.” Ferrera’s first experience with creating wood sculptures was through birdhouses and paddle boats. “I just liked making stuff,” Ferrera said. “I used to make paddle boats and go around the neighborhood and sell them to people even though there were no rivers or lakes around my town.” As a young child, his parents would sign him up for summer art classes. Throughout college, Ferrera became increasingly interested in fire, glass, metal casting and foraging. His love for that type of art has continued to the present day. Ferrera has recently been crafting bronze sculptures. In the future, he would like to explore making sculptures out of concrete. Photo of The Conduit Series by Steven Ferrera
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