Chris Leonard-Bio

    Chris Leonard is an Ankeny, Iowa native. He received his BFA with an emphasis in painting from the University of Northern Iowa in 1985. Chris recently completed a two-year period where he has been a full time graduate student in the University of Texas Pan American Art Department; he finished his MFA in December (2003), and stayed put at UTPA as a lecturer teaching Art Appreciation and Beginning Drawing for a year. After a stint as a visiting artist teaching additional Beginning Drawing at the University of Texas A&M Kingsville this past July, he has returned to the public schools teaching art full time on the western edge of the Valley at La Joya’s Jimmy Carter High School. He still lives right across from Pan Am in his former rent house with his wife Kelly, son Aaron, and daughter Shannon, all South Texas ISD’ers, as well as a house full of pets.

    After a fourteen years of teaching high school math where he felt the verbal and visual domains of his not yet patented Test O’ Fun’s had reached their zenith, the momentous decision was made to return to school in the summer of 2001 in order to renew a suspended journey into the arts. Since this time Chris has turned his attention toward the world of ceramics, allowing his subject matter to exist in three dimensions. Reflection on his family and life experiences as well as present circumstances in a world full of multi cultures and mixed messages fuel his imagery. It would be possible to consider him a stranger in a strange land. Using the UTPA Ceramics facilities as a springboard, he has exhibited both paintings and ceramic work in a diverse number of settings throughout the Rio Grande Valley and has begun to show nationally with entries accepted into the Vitrified Clay National, 8th Annual Cross Timbers Small Works Exhibition, and the Jersey Shore National in 2004.

    Chris has begun the 2004-2005 school year with a full slate of Art I classes presenting multiple challenges for creative outlets and a steady paycheck, which has allowed him to rent a 1,500 square foot warehouse on the southern edge of Edinburg. Presently, he is preparing work for upcoming shows at Murray State College in Tishomingo, Oklahoma in January of 2005, and a Local Color slot at the International Museum of Art and Science here in McAllen at the end of next summer vacation, August 2005.