Jacob Weigel

Jake Weigel is a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on object making-with input from sources including architecture, ecology, systems thinking, theoretical physics and personal experiences. Working for his father’s construction business in Wisconsin at an early age has led to an interest in the role of the artist’s hand in fine craft traditions. By combining traditional art methods with digital technology, he continually expands his experimental practices and teaching opportunities through contemporary dialogues with further investigations of material agency and object-oriented ontology.

As Founding Director of the Dr. Allan Greenberg & Dr. Ellen Junn Warrior Fab Lab on campus, Weigel brings his expertise of design and fabrication to the campus community through pedagogical practices specifically for the integration of digital technology into the existing curriculum. He places further emphasis on STEAM activities including trans-disciplinary collaborations, innovation for sustainability, and equitable access to technology for a regional P-20 maker education pipeline.

The Fab Lab seeks to be an inclusive community of educators and learners that supports a wide range of activities in creativity, education, research, and entrepreneurship for the empowerment of students, staff, faculty, administrators to be agents of change within the campus and regional community.

Weigel is a member of the Stan State Foundation Board of Directors. He has participated in exhibitions across the United States and abroad. Previous teaching experience included Visiting Lecturer of Sculpture and Director of the Nancy Fyfe Cardozier Gallery at the University of Texas of the Permian Basin in Odessa, Texas. In addition to his university teaching, Weigel has worked for and taught summer workshops at Anderson Ranch Arts Center outside Aspen, Colorado, and Arrowmont School of Arts and Crafts in Gatlinburg, Tennessee. He has received numerous grants and awards for his art and research and has published exhibition reviews for Numbers Inc., Temporary Art Review, Eutopia and International Sculpture Center. Weigel has served as chair of the Public Art Committee for the city of Odessa, Texas, and on the steering committee for the National Conference on Contemporary Cast Iron Art & Practices.