Art department assistant lecturer Patrick Kikut, after years of admiring Wyoming’s beauty, takes up residence in the state as he pursues western landscapes to inspire his rigorous artistic works that help him to view art as a practice, rather than decorative work.
On off days, Kikut spends three to four hours working in his studio while on others, he devotes eight to ten hours to his works in progress. He is constantly seeking ways to incorporate his personal work into actively teaching his full class load.
“When you don’t even necessarily have questions to ask, but he’s working, you can learn things that you wouldn’t have thought to ask a professor.” – Art major Connor Liljestrom
“I think that a lot of us think of ‘art’ as more like a verb, as something that is a practice,” said Kikut. “It’s more like law or medicine, you kind of never get to the bottom of it, but you develop those habits. Those habits come from a place of rigor and a place of deep investigation into whatever it might be.”
As Kikut incorporates his personal work into his teaching and encouragement of hard work from his students, those he teaches are able to watch as he practices what he preaches. One such student, art major Connor Liljestrom, feels there is great benefit available from Kikut’s ability to teach by example.
“When you don’t even necessarily have questions to ask, but he’s working, you can learn things that you wouldn’t have thought to ask a professor,” Liljestrom said.
Kikut is hands-on in his approach to teaching, which likely stems from his history of diving right into whatever project is set before him. He diligently chases after inspiration for his work from interests he has in his life.
When Kikut was in college, he attended CU Boulder and decided to plunge right into the art classes being offered on campus. He hadn’t realized beforehand there was actually a way to be an artist as a job. As he took advantage of what the program offered his perspective on his future vocation shifted.
“I was always drawn to drawing, I guess,” Kikut said. “Something about it. I was interested in trying and figuring out how the material works and how to draw.”
During his time of self-exploration, Kikut found himself also drawn to the wild countryside of the west. Projects and assignments from his art classes brought him into the cowboy state seeking direction in what to create.
“Often if I got an assignment for an art project, I would get on the road and think about what I might do for that assignment,” said Kikut. “A lot of times, I’d come to up to Wyoming and drive up and down I80 for the fun of it, but I’d always come back from Wyoming with an idea of what I wanted to do.”
Sometimes, Kikut would take his journey for inspiration into Laramie and the UW campus. At 21, he even believed he could see himself teaching here in the future, which ended up being a reality several years later.
In Kikut’s experience, choosing something he’s passionate about and following through with it till he finds what he’s looking for has served him well. Just as he found a way to make art into a living, he instills in his students’ determination to make their passions work in their favor as well.
“As an artist, in general, I think something I particularly appreciate about Pat is just the interesting model for how you can be an artist in the world,” Liljestrom said. “He’s very much engaged in his art that he’s making and also a teacher. It seems like just a good example of the limitless variations of how to just make artwork in your life.”
To take a page from Kikut’s book, UW students have the opportunity to learn to try everything while they attend the university. Dipping your toe in and taking advantage of the different areas and practices on campus makes room for the introduction of new ideas and possibilities for the road of life ahead.
