If Joel Colosimo notices a student struggling with an assignment in his art classes at Waco High School, he makes a couple of suggestions: Just draw a line, from the bottom of the paper to the top, or simply start scribbling on the page.
Sometimes, a student won’t believe that Colosimo will give a grade just for scribbling, because, he said, “your brain will get tired of making random scribbles. It wants to make sense of it. It wants to sit there and put order to chaos. So if you can learn that balance between creative and chaos and come up with something, you are successful.”
“I literally tell my students that art is visual problem solving, so if they get an A in my class, chances are those students are going to be very, very good problem solvers, not with just visual creation, but in any given situation,” he said.
Colosimo, who was born in Waco, is in his 14th year of teaching at Waco High. He graduated from Sam Houston State University with a degree in commercial and advertising art. He was working as a graphic designer for BP when “my office went from a staff of 13 to a staff of three almost overnight,” he said. After doing some freelance design work, he went through the alternative certification program at Education Service Center Region 12 and began his teaching career at Lake Air Middle School 22 years ago.
Colosimo was also in the National Guard for 11 years and spent two years in deployment. In September 2025, Colosimo was one of six artists honored by Art Spark Texas that “champions accessibility in the arts through multidisciplinary programming, advocacy and collaboration,” according to its website.
Colosimo was the first recipient of Art Spark’s Creative Veteran Service Award, which “recognizes a Texas veteran artist whose creative work and community service exemplify resilience and leadership,” Art Spark’s news release said.
“It was an incredibly humbling experience because there were six people honored, myself included, and I felt like the little man on the totem pole because the other five individuals that were in that room were incredible, incredible human beings,” he said.
Colosimo’s community service work includes helping lead Warriors Canvas, which encourages veterans to use art and other creative means to make connections and promote healing and resilience. Melvin Hall is the brainchild behind Warriors Canvas, Colosimo said, and the two were connected by Mike Hamilton, the chief creative officer at Rogue Media Network.
Colosimo is also part of Brew & Bravo, an effort to help Central Texas veterans connect with one another.
As for his own art, Colosimo creates “everything you could possibly imagine.” He paints, sculpts and uses 3D printing. His presentation at the latest Texas Art Education Association was titled “Bake it, Blow it, Boil it, Torch it.” He and a fellow Waco ISD art teacher demonstrated ways to cure polymer clay sculptures without needing to have access to a kiln.
CenTex Teen Book Fest
Joel Colosimo, from Waco High School, and Matt Menefee, a science teacher at University High School, are two of the folks helping organize a combination comic con and literary festival next month. The Waco ISD Comic Fest and CenTex Teen Book Fest will be from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. on February 28 at University High School.
“Meet with authors and artists to discover story, art and imagination at one free event,” promotional materials say. More information can be found at litwaco.org.
