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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT

Jerry Pacheco

BY HAILEY MINTON

North Ogden resident, Jerry Pacheco, is a watercolor landscape artist who taught art at elementary schools for 32 years. He taught grades 3-6 but taught mostly 4th grade. He spent many years at Country View and later finished at Majestic Elementary.

While attending school at Weber State as an art major, he lived close enough to campus to walk, and he always had a camera around his neck, looking for compositions. “You see the world differently if you’re looking for compositions.” He enjoys painting landscapes, and he is currently doing a series of paintings that are favorite fishing places around the area.

He said that people might inherit a few techniques from their family members, but self confidence makes a bigger difference in the long run. “When you see kindergarteners, they all think of themselves as artists. Then by 3rd grade, very few consider themselves to be artists. As you get older, you need to have confidence. Everyone is comparing you, and you’re comparing yourself.” Jerry’s parents encouraged him when he was young, and his dad had a particular influence in Jerry’s path. “We lived in a basement house, and my dad built the upstairs by himself… He’d work all day, then he’d work on the house. We had a big picture window in the front of the house, and he’d do paintings on plywood with house paint.” He explained that cars would park out front and watch. Since then, he has been looking for light and shadows that call him to pick up his own brushes.