Dakota Bowers is the new kid on the block at Ripon High School, and hailing from Ripon’s rival, Escalon. Bower was born and raised in Escalon, and attended Escalon High School.  

In highschool, Bowers was a “Drama Kid” and participated in plays as well as art shows.  

Bowers has always had a love for art, and used it as an escape from everyday life.  

One of Bowers’s major art inspirations is Salvador Dali. Because of Dali’s abnormal form of art, Bowers was inspired to make his pieces that way. Bowers describes his drawing and painting style as “unconscious,” meaning that he starts his canvas with scribbles and eventually makes an image.

Another individual who has inspired Bowers is Arnold Schwarzenegger; not for Schwarzenegger’s art, but for his body building.  

Bowers attended Modesto Junior College where he got his Associate of Arts degree, and took general education classes. Bowers then received his bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts at Stanislaus State.

In Bowers’s first year at Ripon High School, he plans to continue the Gallery of the Arts show, which takes place at the end of the school year.  Bowers wants to add more shows and exhibits, and put the students’ art pieces in classrooms to showcase the talents of many students.

One of Bowers’s main goals for this school year is to help his students have a head start to be able to study the arts if they have a passion for it.

Bowers said, ¨I want my students to feel that they went from point A to point B, as long as they get basic skills and foundations to where they can go from there and develop their skills continuously.¨  

Once Bowers started teaching, he had an interest in shoes, and bought more for the upcoming school year.  Bowers believes that as a teacher you need to be professional, but as an artist he wants to present himself with jewelry and interesting clothing.

“You have to be professional as you dress, and as an art teacher I push out the barriers of the box a little.  I enjoy shoes and jewelry, and having a good style of how I present myself. The way you present yourself to the world is how they are gonna see you.”

Dakota Bowers wants to push Ripon High students to improve their artistic talents, and expand their love for expressing themselves on canvas.