Hum... Late last night/early this morning I got an email from a random yahoo account that my Weebly site had been hacked and everything on it was going to be used against me.  Therefore I decided to get another post out there to warm you to beware.  I guess somebody has found a way to turn my elementary art lessons into something that will harm me.  If it ends up being that a bail out is needed for either my website or me myself, I'll call you personally and you will know me personally and you will understand the legitimacy of the situation.  Otherwise, just leave me alone h.ackers.  I don't have a single thing for you.

The Big Damn, Rock River
metals and stained glass
Taho, 2019

Since it was long overdue, I have finally updated my site.  The dates, titles, and achievements are current to the best of my knowledge.

At the moment, I am working on a commissioned sculpture for the new Sanford Clinic in Rock Rapids, Iowa.  It is a 3-D wall art piece with copper, aluminum, and stained glass.  Today I will assemble everything and tomorrow I deliver it to be hung in the main waiting room of the new facility right above the fireplace mantel.  Can hardly wait to see it installed in its final home.

It didn't take me long to adapt to my new position and lifestyle as COO of Hoppe Roofing Inc..  My current workload is quite the opposite of my former one; I have much less to do in the winter months and much, much more to do in the summer months.  This is my first winter with Hoppe Roofing, Inc., and at this very moment, I am on the road to Florida where I will spend a month relaxing and chilling out (in a beautiful 80 degrees rather than 80 inches of snow) with my mother at her snowbird home in Venice.  HA, couldn't do this last year or any other year for the previous 30 years.  LIFE CHANGING.

I just finished RAGBRAI, an annual bicycle ride across Iowa, for my 20th consecutive year.  This year is the first time my stomach has not done somersaults over the contemplation of preparing for a new school year.

My new role in life is as CEO of our family company, Hoppe Roofing, Inc.  As much as I will miss my students (all great teachers understand this kind of love), it was time for a new "job."  

Even though it is out of my hands now, I am concerned about my students' future visual arts education;  the school I left did not hire an art teacher or even an artist to fill the art education position.  They simply transferred a generalist into this specialist role.  The real deal that I truly want to share is that no matter how much heart, soul, passion, love, and more you pour into building an elite visual arts program and relationships with high quality student artists, the teaching position is sometimes seen by the school as nothing more than just another position to be filled by a warm body.  This makes me sad for the future of art education.

Second time around with the A.R.T. 2017 was a win-lose situation.  I have a great turnout of viewers but no buyers.  I met wonderful people and great contacts but have created no business relationships.  I have decided to switch gears a bit.  The new art business relationships I am working on at the moment are a bit different than what I had tried to focus on last year but promising all the same.  I'll let you know how it turns out as of this summer:  August / September'ish.  Wish me luck.

It was time to update the look of my professional webpage: not a huge change, just a little one.  I am not a fan of constant movement on webpages, so I removed the dropdown lists--you know, the lists that pop out when the mouse hovers over the tabs above and disappear when the mouse moves on to another tab.  You can still find all the same information under "About Me," "Notable Projects," and "Unit Plans," but in the form of buttons instead.  I prefer to choose and click what information pops up when I'm surfing, and buttons instead of dropdown lists give me that option.  Hope you like the changes also.