An Interview with William Wegman

Wow, do I have a treat for you today! I had the amazing opportunity to talk with American artist William Wegman on the phone. Bill is well known for his photographs of Weimaraner dogs, dressed in all sorts of costumes and settings. Did you know he has also written and illustrated children’s books as well as created films and paintings? If you’d like to see some of his artworks, there is a wide selection on his Pinterest page.

Two of his children’s books are Flo & Wendell and Flo & Wendell Explore. These are fantastic books and I highly recommend them if you would like to teach your students about Bill’s art.

How did this interview come about? A few weeks ago, his assistant contacted me to review his new children’s book on my blog. Inspired by Mr. E’s bold move to reach out to Dale Chihuly (another of my art heroes) I decided to ask if Bill could be reached for an interview. I figured, what’s the worst that can happen? Bill graciously accepted my request and after testing out a few phone call recording apps, I was able to record the conversation for you! (Permission has been granted by the artist to record and post the phone interview. At around 5 minutes, the call disconnected and the audio has been edited to combine the two calls.)

I will have two parts in this blog series. In this first post, I will share with you the interview and in the second post, I will give you a look at his new children’s book. I will share pictures of the artwork my students made using photomontage.