Tiffany Weser, an art teacher at Columbia Virtual Academy (CVA), has been named the Georgia Art Education Association’s (GAEA) 2025 Art Educator of the Year.
CVA is a virtual education option under the Columbia County School District, and offers a variety of art classes including studio drawing, 2D and 3D art and design, photography and graphic design,
“It’s absolutely amazing…it’s a complete and utter honor,” said Weser, who has been teaching art for 23 years.
Weser also received GAEA’s Georgia Youth Art Month Award of Merit.
Over two decades of art instruction
Weser began teaching in 2003 with an internship at Glen Hills Middle School in Augusta. She has been impacting classrooms ever since.
“I’ve had students that are graphic designers. I have one that graduated with an interior design degree,” she said. “That makes me feel good, because I know I’ve prepared them for the next level.”
Weser, whose personal artwork is primarily photography and sculpture, said she’s had artistic interests from a very early age.
“In second grade I went to art classes with the fifth graders,” she said.
In the classroom
For Weser, her students are her biggest inspiration.
“They’re all so artistically different that it’s just amazing to me to see what they can do,” she said.
She added that it isn’t uncommon for students to not fully realize their expressive potential at first.
“It doesn’t matter what your art is,” she said. “You are creative, that is all there is to it…they just don’t see that creativity within them. Sometimes I’ve got to drag it out.”
Recognition
Weser was first recognized for her accomplishments at a Columbia County Board of Education Meeting on Tuesday, Oct. 8. Board member Lee Ann Meyer addressed Weser, saying, “I am still in awe of how you teach art virtually.”
Meyer said that someday she’d like to attend one of Weser’s virtual art classes.
Weser will be honored at the GAEA Fall conference Oct. 17-19 in Atlanta. Her application will proceed for judging at the regional level.
