WITZ   FINE   ARTS

                   Patrick C Witz

                             Award Winning

       Photographer            Author                Artist

Patrick’s a curmudgeonly aging brother, husband, father, writer, photographer, artist, former teacher of tiny humans, and an all-around nice guy who believes his in-laws use Italian expletives when speaking of him.

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Artist

Patrick typically paints using oil on stretched canvas. However, recently he has switched to the ancient paint medium of casein on birch panels, as casein is water based and not as toxic as oil. He on occasion incorporates molding compounds into his art to create soft 3-D effects. His art is just as unique as his writings… eclectic. Patrick’s subjects range from aloof cartoons, to majestic landscapes, to the feathers of a bird.

Sculpter

Patrick’s artistic endeavors in recent years have ventured into 3-Dimensional Art. His daughters gave him a 20-hours instructed sculpting class for Father’s Day. He loved it! However, his first piece, a hand sculpted self-portrait bust was destroyed in a kiln accident. As Patrick tells the story, his head exploded,

RIP (Rest in Pieces).

Which brings us to his second piece, which was created with a different approach in mind… “Primal Thoughts”.

Photographer

Patrick’s photography is not unlike his writing and art… eclectic. His diverse photography includes people, still life, scenery, close-up, wild life, insects and flowers and so much more. Each image ignites an array of emotions… happy, sad, interesting, scary, unique, humorous, colorful and inspiring. Patrick creatively manipulates many of his photos, morphing them into unique and exquisite pieces of 2-Dimensional visual art imagery. His virtual bounty of beautiful images both captures and illuminates wonderful moments and experiences in his personal life and from travels around the world. Over 400 images are available for viewing and purchase online at  

https://patrick-witz.pixels.com/ 

Art Accolades

Patrick is happy to share his awards, ribbons, trophies and recognitions received over the years. His photography and paintings have garnered over the past decade numerous ribbons, “Best of Show”, “1st Place”, “2nd Place”, and “3rd Place” in two local Fairs, Placer County Fair and Gold Country Fair.  He was repeatedly requested to participate in the Art Can Heal Gallery exhibit in the local Hospital. The gallery sold many pieces over the years. There was one unique situation that he is particularly proud of… one of his images was attributed to saving a person’s life.  

Author

Patrick’s an award-winning short story author who loves to bring words to life in readers’ minds - strumming emotions; sculpting interesting characters; creating captivating dialogue; and presenting it all in colorful settings.

Patrick takes pride in his proprietary recipe of mixing well flavorful blends of humanity, nature, space and time; Generously adding large amounts of imagination; Vigorously stirring in a variety of emotions; And in the end, he serves up facinating, diverse stories… and on occasion tosses in startling tangy twists of fate.  

He enjoys writing fiction, non-fiction, and lately has been blending the two - label them memoiristic, historical fiction, maybe even pseudo-non-fiction. He’s written novellas, dozens of short stories, flash and micro fiction. And like a million other writers, he also has been working on a couple novels like for-ev-ver!

His writings began with his first annual Witz Family Holiday Newsletter thirty-years-ago. Patrick’s “abnormal” newsletters always have a uniquely different theme each year (horror, cinema, mythical, and observations made by a spider, pet(s), the Elf-on-the-Shelf, Alexis, and there was even a Barbara Walters interview), each documenting his family’s adventures, misadventures, triumphs, and not to only paint with bright colors, even catastrophes and failures.

In the beginning, he learned to write the hard, embarrassing way. One of his first ever holiday newsletters was literally mailed back to him. His seventy-five-year-old, retired English teacher,aunt-in-law, had made more handwritten corrections in RED than all his typed black ink on the page. He said it took him years to get over that letter. However, he quickly adds, without a doubt, that it made him a far, far better writer. Now nothing leaves his desk that has not been edit, edit, edit and edited some more. He still hears in the back of his head the voice of Edgar Allen Poe during those editing sessions… Never More!

On the international writer blog website, Medium.com, Patrick has fifty-three (53) intriguing, funny, diverse, both fiction and nonfiction - short stories, flash fiction, micro-fiction, essays, and articles. www.patrick-witz.medium.com 

Patrick authored seven of fifteen short diverse stories in the award-winning anthology, "Through Button Eyes, A Collection of Short Fiction"... He also co-published, co-edited, and creatively designed the book’s cover image.  “Through Button Eyes” was one of the top five international award-winning Anthologies in the 2017 Next Generation Indie Book Awards (NGIBA). The anthology is still available in print or e-book online. #ThroughButtonEyes 

Teacher of Tiny Humans

Patrick and his wife Jeannette owned and operated a California State licensed In-Home Large Family Child Care - “Creative Kids Preschool & Child Care, for over 31-years and was well known as a reputable, high-quality, private preschool and family child care program.

The owners and business achieved NAFCC National Accreditation twice and as well was honorably recognized by the California State Senate and the Placer County Superintendent of Schools for “Exemplary Child Care”.

In 2008, the school was selected from hundreds of California childcare programs to be “Child Care Provider of the Week” by the PBS early childhood education TV show, “A Place of Our Own”. A shorter version of the fifteen minute interview aired continuously the entire summer of 2008 throughout California as an example of “California’s Gold” on Public Television.

It was an honor to be part of our local communities: For years the children painted business windows and supplied their art work for the local hospital’s Art Can Heal Galleries. For 25 years the school built and entered unique floats annually into three local foothill community parades - and won top honors for every entry!

The school was also proud to have hosted several Trike-a-Thon’s that generated over $30,000 in donations for St. Jude Children’s Hospital.

Three local newspaper’s repeatedly published over 31 years close to 75 images of preschool events: Santa visits, Easter Bunny and Leprechaun visits, field trips to Pumpkin Patches, summer outings to museums, State Parks, Historic buildings/ landmarks, local sites and numerous businesses and artist studios.

For 31 years the school remained at full capacity and gave loving quality care to over 600 children. They are proud and thrilled to report a large number of those preschool alumni graduated with high school honors/cords, graduated college, and are now highly successful adults. The school even had a few alumni children’s children enroll the last few years… and was truly humbled and honored to teach a second generation.

With all that said and done, with heavy hearts the owners retired. They will without a doubt miss all the young smiling faces, and want to thank all the parents and the community for supporting them these past 31 years - it was a wonderful adventure filled with love, laughter, songs, dancing and a few tears… Thank You!

Jeannette and Patrick Witz

Co-Owners, Co-Directors,

Loving Teachers of Tiny Humans

Creative Kids Preschool & Child Care