Underwater Artist: Warren Cane

Many at the Sharon Art Studio have admired the showcase displaying Warren Cane's ceramics and watercolors of marine life. They wondered about his background. I interviewed Warren, a student in my Friday morning ceramics class, about his life and art background.

Q: Warren, please tell me a bit about yourself
A: My original love was marine sciences and biology. I studied it for 1 year in junior college as a marine science major. As a member of the coast guard, I was then on active duty for three years. After this time in the military, being married with a child, I needed a job. I took an aptitude test which said I would make a good teacher.

Upon becoming a teacher, Warren mainly taught 3rd-4th grades. He focused on science. Later he became a special education teacher, running one of the first new special education classes in the SF unified district. For several years Warren also ran all the summer schools for the district. Warren eventually became a school principal and was a principal for a total of 25 years at 3 different schools.

Q: With all that going on, did you have time for any art?
A: At that time in my life I went to museums with my family and took art classes with my children.

Q: Tell me about coming to Sharon Art Studio.
A: I began taking a glass class about 4-5 years before I retired in 2001. Glass was an appealing medium as I thought it would lend itself to underwater sciences…and it did. However, I kept wanting to draw outside the lines. This was difficult to do with glass.

Q: Were you taking any other art classes?
A: I was taking various drawing classes at the same time, including at SAS.

Q: So, how did you come to work at SAS in the ceramics studio?
A: I kept gravitating down to ceramics. It was such a welcoming environment. Many ceramics folks encouraged me to join a ceramics class. I also began taking painting in the south bay. I had two very good teachers and now I attend a watercolor open studio at the San Carlos recreation center. It is also a very supportive environment.

Q: Warren, watercolor seems like a very hard medium.
A: It is. I wanted to do the hardest medium. There is a part of me that wants to keep growing and learning. Let me mention also that in art and life most of my successes started as accidents.

Q: What else keeps you busy these days?
A: Well, besides my family of 5 kids and a number of grandkids, I love making tools to work with clay. And I just started volunteering in a special education class in Redwood City.

So Warren may be retired from his job but he is far from retired with an active schedule. Family, painting, ceramics and much more, his life gets richer and I am very happy that he is a part of the SAS community.

- Lynn Wood, SAS Staff