Art Sherwyn on Teaching, Kindness, and a Life Rooted in Kern
Published February 01, 2026 | Featured Photo: Cayucos Beach Parking Lot, Acrylic, by Art Sherwyn
Walking into Art Sherwyn’s Bakersfield art studio feels like stepping into a life that has been deeply loved. The room is full without feeling crowded—drawers filled with obvious tools, stacks of sketches, large paintings leaning patiently against the walls. Nothing is staged. There’s a quiet warmth in the space, the kind that comes from years of returning to the same place for the right reasons.
“I’ve been retired since 2011, but I still teach tennis at the Racquet Club,” he says. “I need to get out because I spend so much time alone. Artists, we spend so much time alone. I need to keep that.”
He knows the risk of isolation. “You have to be careful,” he says. “Because when you’re always alone and then finally you get out, you can talk too much.”
That mix of self-awareness, humor, and honesty runs through everything Art Sherwyn does. His life’s work—both in the classroom, in the studio, and beyond—has been shaped by one steady belief: show up, be kind, and put in the time.
On Being an Artist
Courtesy of Art Sherwyn: Shot taken below Mt. Whitney
“I got into art kind of by accident,” he says.
He traces it back to being a student before schools had the language or tools to support different ways of learning. “Back then they didn’t know a lot about learning disabilities,” he says. “When I found out, everything started to make sense.”
As a student, reading didn’t stick. “I couldn’t remember what I read,” he says. “I didn’t know what was wrong with me and everybody was kind of telling me to work harder.”
What did come naturally was movement. “The one thing that I could always do was hit, catch, and throw balls,” he says. “I was athletic.”
That’s how teaching entered his life. A coaching job opened the door, and then came the unexpected question. “They asked if I could teach arts and crafts,” he says. “I wasn’t trained… but I said yes.”
On Teaching
Courtesy of Art Sherwyn – Art Sherwyn Conducting an art retreat in the Kernville area
“I’ll never forget,” he says, “I told my roommate, ‘I’m just going to be really nice to these kids. So at least they don’t report me.’ ”
That was the plan.
What happened instead surprised him. “After a few weeks, students were coming up and saying, ‘Man, I really like your class,’ ” he says. “And I’m thinking, wow. They didn’t know that I don’t know very much.”
The realization came quickly. “I saw the power of being nice,” he says. Then he lands on the line that became a cornerstone of his teaching. “Nice is actually probably more important than knowledge. Yet, the best scenario is to have both.”
The art room became a great space. “The kids wanted to be there,” he says. “No homework, no test scores, no numbers.”
For students who struggled elsewhere, that mattered. It was a room where pressure softened and curiosity had room to breathe.
On Kindness
“When you walk into a classroom,” he says, “you can make someone’s day.”
He talks about moving quietly through the room, complimenting and encouraging each student. He talks about kids who were bullied, kids who were sad, kids who didn’t feel like they belonged.
“The art room is one hour, [and] you’re going to be amazing,” he says. “You are going to be loved in this room.”
He never believed his job was to turn every student into an artist. “How many are really going to become artists?” he says. “Very, very few.”
Then he answers it simply. “So obviously you’re not here to make artists,” he says. “You’re here to use art as a way to connect… to connect as a human being.”
That belief followed him beyond Kern County and into conference halls across California, where teachers filled rooms to hear how he worked. Sometimes those rooms overflowed.
On Humor and Failure
Credit: Aedrian Salazar, Pexels
“One of the biggest problems art teachers have is paintbrushes,” he says. “The kids ruin them, and they’re expensive.”
So he turned it into a lesson.
“One day all the students walk in and there’s black balloons all over the room,” he says. In the back sat a large Barbie car with gray flannel draped over it, carrying the ruined brushes. A burial site waited at the trash can.
“Today is a somber day. We are going to have a funeral for all the brushes that you killed,” he told them.
A few laughed.
“All through your school career,” he told them, “every time the teacher brought out the brushes, you were happy.” Then he connected it to history. “Leonardo used the same brush we’re using today. Monet used it like this. Pollock like this.”
“It humanized the brushes,” he says. Within weeks, teachers across California were holding brush funerals of their own.
Failure was never something to hide. “I was terrible at first,” he says of his own art. “I was so bad I knew I was bad.”
He worked anyway. “I went on a rampage,” he says. “I work every day and night to this day… when working on location on my best day, I’m 50% good.”
The advice that comes from that is straightforward. “Put in the time. Learn to draw. You’ve got to put in hours and hours and hours.”
On Disney and National Recognition in 1995
“The world changed for me at Wasco in ’95,” Sherwyn says.
That year, he was nominated for a major national teaching award connected to Disney called The American Teacher Award. “There were about 60,000 teachers in the country nominated,” he says. “Then they narrowed it down to 60.”
Disney sent a crew to Wasco and filmed a two-day documentary on his classroom. “It played on Nickelodeon for the whole year,” he says. The judges narrowed the field again. “Then they picked 36. And somehow I made it.” They honored three top teachers in 12 different disciplines, Sherwyn, naturally, one of the three art teachers.
What followed felt unreal. “It was six days of wining and dining. Washington D.C., EPCOT Center. Famous people cheering us on.”
He laughs when he remembers the tux. “They dressed me in a tux. That was the thing. I was not a tux kind of guy.”
Awards followed—California Secondary Art Educator of the Year, then national recognition—but Sherwyn stayed wary of too much attention.
“When you win an award, it wins you more,” he says. “And when too much comes your way, people start to not like you.”
Wasco wanted him to serve as grand marshal in the Wasco Rose Parade. He declined. “No, no more,” he says. “I’ve had enough… I was very lucky and had an amazing run.”
On Wasco
“If you don’t care about art,” Sherwyn says, “then I’m the wrong person to be teaching here.”
He knew it the moment the words left his mouth. At the time, he was teaching at Wasco Union High School, where he’d built a nationally recognized program and earned some of the highest honors of his career. But when a new administrator made it clear that art no longer mattered, Sherwyn experienced something that was never in the plans. “Right then I knew,” he paused. “Oh wow, my career at Wasco is over.”
“I lost my tenure. I lost money. I lost 13 years of my career,” he says. “But I couldn’t work for that kind of man.” Many thought he left because he was offered a higher paying job. Many never learned why.
When it ended, he didn’t announce it. “I didn’t want anybody to know I was leaving,” he says. “I didn’t want to attract any attention to this.”
On his last day, he locked the door and left quietly. “I didn’t go to the teacher meetings or anything. I just got in the car and drove down Highway 99… and I [thought], ‘Wow. I’m done.’ ”
A friend at Stockdale High reached out at just the right moment and the rest is history. Sherwyn taught there for a little over a decade and retired at Stockdale High School.
On Kern County
“Hart Park” by Art Sherwyn | Acrylic
“I like the peace of Kern County,” he says. “I can get to the rivers and get to peace and quiet and don’t have to deal with traffic.”
He’s spent years defending Bakersfield to people who dismiss it. “They think we’re all hicks,” he says. “I don’t know why people knock Bakersfield. There are a lot of really good people here.”
Scale matters to him. “I love the idea of being in a small pond,” he says. “When you’re in small ponds, it’s easier to be a bigger fish.”
Not for ego, but for impact. “I can make a difference in my own way,” he says.
That difference shows up when former students stop him years later. When people remember how his class made them feel.
On Making Work Until the End
“Doodle Boxes,” by Art Sherwyn | Ink and Colored Pencils
“I just enjoy the hell out of making this stuff,” he says. “Everything else is gravy.”
He doesn’t chase galleries. He doesn’t chase attention. He paints because he needs to. “I’ll do this until the day before I die,” he says. “I can’t stop.”
At 75, Sherwyn is still a night owl. He still experiments. He still practices. And he still shows up.
On Kern Food
“I prefer to go to restaurants that serve healthy food,” Sherwyn says. “Bottom line… There’s a whole bunch of restaurants that don’t serve healthy food. If you don’t serve healthy food, I’m probably not going there.”
Clean, simple meals keep him moving. Poke and sushi are regular stops, often paired with a bike ride or a swim five to six times a week. “Healthy is really important.”
On getting Out of Town
“Cambria is the place, my wife and I have had a small house there for 20 years.” Sherwyn says.
He spends time painting along the coast, though not in the way most people expect. “When artists go to the coast, they’re always painting the sand and the rocks and the cliffs,” he says. “I said, enough of that for me.”
Instead, he looks elsewhere. “I started painting the parking lots. The beach is right there, but I’m painting the parking lot.”
Beyond Cambria, he talks about camping in the Sequoias, Yosemite before reservations were required, Kings Canyon, and the long stretch of Highway 395. “I love going where people aren’t,” he says. “I have spent many hours hiking and painting in Utah.”
Hotels don’t appeal to him. “Paying 300 bucks to sleep for six hours doesn’t make sense to me.” He’s slept in campsites. He’s slept in his car. “I’m more of a dirt guy, those bigger places disconnect you from everything else.”
On Advice For Making Art
“Glasses” by Art Sherwyn | Created with Candle Smoke
“Practice, practice, practice,” Sherwyn says.
“If you desire to make serious art, you will be provided with lifelong learning with engaging challenges,” he says. “If you want to get good, you must make art most every day, whether it be sketching, painting, sculpting—whatever it is.”
“You must be your best teacher,” he says. “That comes from how you practice, the sources you select, and the intensity of your work ethic.”
There’s no shortcut. Just consistency.
“In return,” he says, “making art will provide you a lifelong journey, and you get better with age—it’s a journey that is good for the soul and the mind.”
It’s the same advice he’s lived by for decades. Show up. Be kind. Put in the time. Have some humor. Keep going. Tomorrow is another chance to not only try again, but to try something new.
For Art Sherwyn, partnership matters. “I would have never been at the place I am today as an art maker without having the right partner. She gave me the room to spend the hours to grow,” he says. “Artists need a lot of alone time, without the right partner, they will be hampered… I truly lucked out.”
On the Horizon
There’s a book in the works on the many ways that art connects to life and living and there are also shows on the horizon for Art Sherwyn this spring, including an art show in Cambria, with the opening night March 7th and it will run for two months.
Learn more about Art Sherwyn.
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