PHS Visual Art Department

Welcome to the Pewaukee High School Visual Art Department. You will find many visual art resources, links to our programs, classes and more.

This website includes a great deal of helpful information. At the top you will find tabs and drop-down tabs for many of the outstanding programs and classes we offer. Students will find their assignments embedded in the class pages for each of the classes we teach. For syllabi and standards information click the Classes tab. There are lots of art galleries within this site. If you click on the class tab at the top a drop down menu will show all the classes we offer in the Visual Art Department. Each of those pages has a gallery of some of the works created by students in the course, (except for those that are new courses). There is also a chart of all the courses offered that may be helpful to plan your art future.

Gene Frett Visual Art Scholarship

The Gene Frett Visual Art Scholarship (Pewaukee Scholarship Fund)
The Pewaukee High School Visual Arts Scholarship was founded in 2007 to offer scholarships to promising PHS artists to enable their pursuit of excellence in the visual arts at the college level.

In 2012 a generous donation by Terry and Lauree Frett in honor of Terry’s dad Gene was made; thus renaming the scholarship. Gene Frett worked for Binney-Smith selling art supplies to classroom teachers. The scholarship came under the umbrella of the Pewaukee Scholarship Fund with this donation and renaming. In 2014 the Frett family donated an additional amount to the fund to raise the annual scholarship to $1500.00. The scholarship continues to support the studies of Pewaukee High School Visual Art students looking to continue their pursuit of excellence at the college level. Please carefully read and complete this application packet. The scholarship amount is $1500.00 annually awarded to a deserving artist as identified through this process.

Scholarship 2021 Scoring Rubric
Scholarship Fund 2021 Application

Vertical Sculptures Inspire Creativity

Students in Ms. Olson's Sculpture 2 participated in a group hanging sculpture challenge. Working in the restrictions of specific materials given to them, and just one class period, students were to create a hanging sculpture from the ceiling to the floor.

Congratulations Scholastic Art Awards

Congratulations to the Scholastic Art Competition for the State of Wisconsin award recipients. The exhibition is highly competitive and becomes more and more challenging each year to get work accepted into and honored. There are 3 levels of awards in Scholastic: Gold Key is the top award and has works being considered for National recognition, Silver Key is the next award with works being awarded at the State Level and Honorable Mention is the third State Level award. Gold and Silver Key works are exhibited at the Milwaukee Art Museum Due to COVID the exhibition will be all virtual this year and can be found on their website from February 6-March 21, 2021.

Here is the list of who received what:
Zoe Kohler received a Gold Key for her photograph called "The Facade"

FAQs about the Art Department

Learn more about the art department quickly with this handy FAQ document. You can download as a pdf here.
Here is a video overview of our department.

Goodbye and Hello

Goodbye: The PHS art department bids a fond farewell to Mr. Lamp. He is moving into a new role with the school district as the Create coach. He will be running the innovation and maker spaces in the district and working with all teachers to help them implement creativity in their classes. Hello: The PHS Art Department is happy to welcome Mrs. Alli Olson as art educator.

Here is a bit more about Mrs. Olson:

Hi, I'm Mrs. Olson. This will be my 12th year teaching Art. I previously taught in the School District of Waukesha. I am extremely excited to be here at Pewaukee High School. I love teaching and love working with students to make their visions come to life. I personally love sculpting with clay and throwing on the potter's wheel in my spare time. If I'm not making art you can find me outside with my children. We love being outside as a family, staying active and enjoying nature.

Welcome to Mrs. Olson!!!

Meet the PHS Visual Art Teachers

The Visual Art Department is home to two visual art educators. Alli Olson and Jeanne Bjork. We are both passionate about connecting the PHS Visual Art students to the many fantastic arts organizations and communities in Milwaukee and around the world. If you have questions the best way to reach us is via email. Just click our names or our pictures and it should take you directly to the email address.

Ms. Olson teaches Introduction to Art, Sculpture 1 & 2, Art History, AP Art History and Introduction to Digital Media in room 115.
For here 1st Semester Schedule see below.

Fall 2020 -21 Schedule Term One A Day
Resource: 7:20 -7:50
First Period: 7:55 - 9:20 Sculpture 1
Second Period: 9:25 - 10:50 Introduction to Art
D Lunch 12:25 - 12:55
Third Period: 10:55 - 12:20 Introduction to Art
Fourth Period:1:00 - 2:25 Prep

Fall 2020 -21 Term 2 B Day
Resource: 7:20 -7:50
First Period: 7:55 - 9:20 Introduction to Digital Media
Second Period: 9:25 - 10:50 Art History
D Lunch 12:25 - 12:55
Third Period: 10:55 - 12:20 Introduction to Art
Fourth Period:1:00 - 2:25 Prep

Mrs. Bjork is the department head and teaches AP Art and Design, Painting 1, Digital Photography 1 & 2, Drawing 1, Painting 1, Drawing2/Painting2, Animation, Graphic Design, and Digital Illustration

For her 1st Semester Schedule see below.

Fall 2020 -21 Schedule Term One A Day
Resource: 7:20 -7:50
First Period: 7:55 - 9:20 Drawing 1
Second Period: 9:25 - 10:50 Prep
A Lunch 10:55 - 11:20
Third Period: 11:25 - 12:55 Animation
Fourth Period:1:00 - 2:25 AP Art and Design

Fall 2020 -21 Term 2 B Day
Resource: 7:20 -7:50
First Period: 7:55 - 9:20 Graphic Design
Second Period: 9:25 - 10:50 Painting 1
A Lunch 10:55 - 11:20
Third Period: 11:25 - 12:55 Digital Photography 1
Fourth Period:1:00 - 2:25 Prep

Art Club Connects to Community

Check out all the Art Club news including links to our social media sites. Click the Art Club tab at the top. Watch for announcements regarding joining. Find us on Instagram @phsarrtclub

PHS Art QR Code for Mobil Devices

Subscribe to the Art Blog

Posts to the Art Blog often feature student artwork, students making art and much more. To subscribe click the Art Blog Tab and follow directions in the subscription box.

Great Job Painting 1 Class

Painting 1 did a fantastic job this past semester. They created many beautiful and creative works of art. This set of self portraits is especially inspiring.

A Bit of Fun from Animation Class

During Term 1 Mrs. Bjork had a great Animation class. Students made outstanding art despite the compressed time frame for working in a media that is very time consuming. Here are a few of their final works. Enjoy! To see more visit Mrs. Bjork's Youtube Channel.

Art Club Helps Out with The Memory Project Connecting to Malaysia

The Pewaukee High School Art Club is devoted to service in the community. This past school year our connections took us beyond Pewaukee and connected us to Malaysia through The Memory Project.

The connection was wonderful and students were so proud of their artistic creations. Please watch the video linked here to see children in Malaysia receiving their portraits. https://vimeo.com/402225080/20bc2e30cc

Here is a bit more about About the Memory Project: The Memory Project is a charitable nonprofit organization that invites art teachers and their students to create and donate portraits to youth around the world who have faced substantial challenges, such as violence, disasters, extreme poverty, neglect, and loss of parents.

We want the portraits to help the children feel valued and important, to know that many people care about their well being, and to act as meaningful pieces of personal history in the future. For the art students, we want this to be an opportunity to creatively practice kindness and global awareness.

Mr. Lamp Pitches In Making Masks with Art Department 3D Printers

Pewaukee School District is giving back to the community trying to help front line health care workers with masks. Mr. Lamp learned of the need for more masks and the possibility that PSD could help from Superintendent Mike Cady. Mr. Cady had seen a post on Concordia University's blog. He contacted Mr. Lamp and Mr. Roehl from ACMS. To learn more about these outreach efforts see the story on WISN TV.

Travel to Paris and Barcelona with the Visual Art Department in 2021!

Due to the Covid19 virus our trip was postponed to summer of 2021. We still have room available for a few more travelers. If you love art and travel you should join us for the summer 2021 trip. See Mr. Lamp for details.

Just as an FYI, parents are able to travel as well, and we've always had a great experience traveling with other adults.
You can find additional trip information on this site.

Art Vocabulary Videos

Check out this great resource on YouTube to learn art vocabulary from Phil Hanson.