Photography by J. Sinclair

Are artists born or made? And is there such thing as design DNA? These are questions art educator Wade Billeisen might ask his students to consider. No doubt he wrestled with them himself as an art student studying graphic design and drawing at Colorado State University.

Newly relocated from Denver, Billeisen is revitalizing the art department at the recently opened Northern Guilford High School - the first “all-green” school in North Carolina. Finding a residence in a new city is always a challenge, but when Billeisen encountered the charming R.L. Thompson House in historic Fisher Park, he says he knew he was home.

Rife with Germanic architectural details, the stuccoed cottage had overhung flared eaves, timber brackets, clipped gables, and eight-over-one windows. Built-in flower boxes overflowed with color and a side porch flaunted a wooden railing speckled with diamond cutouts. A distinctively arched front door and porch with built-in benches opened into a main hall with a central staircase of tiger oak treads. Truly, the house was as much art as abode.

Then, enter Billeisen - designer and educator-turned-decorator - an artist who is inspired to push the boundaries of traditional interior design to juxtapose art and architecture.

Inside Billeisen’s home, perched on the lower landing of a Mission-style staircase, a Buddha head stares into eternity, his curly locks echoing the swirls in a Calder print hanging above. The grain of quarter-sawn tiger oak in banister and baluster, and the Joel Shapiro woodblock print at the top of the stairs teach lessons that ponder the nature of design and celebrate design in nature.

In the dining room, a large canvas leans against an entire wall with five square-shouldered cowboys standing side by side. It’s artist Hyland Mather’s Last of the Long Tall Cowboys, Billeisen’s first piece of art as a collector, one he sacrificed his book money for while in college.

Propped on the adjacent wall, an orange plank is Billeisen’s personal homage to the work of minimalist sculptor John McCracken. In the corner of the room, a contemporary acrylic floor lamp highlights color at the intersection of the two pieces, and “allows you to see through one shape into the next,” he says. It’s a lesson in perspective.

Seeing through one room into the next was another perspective that informed Billeisen’s sense of interior design. Standing at a kitchen island of poured concrete, you can peer into the dining room to see Mather’s cowboys or into the living room to catch a glimpse of one of Mies van der Rohe’s black leather Barcelona chairs and chaise. In each room, a central tenet of Billeisen’s teaching is that art at every level makes a bold statement.

But Billeisen’s most vociferous lesson in the journey of artistic self-discovery is likely his willingness to experiment. In that spirit, the artist decorated his upstairs guest bedroom with stacked gym lockers he rescued from his former school. The square, industrial-gray “dresser” redefines clothing storage and sits opposite a pair of four-by-four canvases from one of Wade’s many architectural series, titled Water Tower. The juxtaposition balances the room’s interior composition in color and form while defying the expectations of traditional of interior design.

As Northern Guilford High School students continue to grow comfortable this spring in their new environment, Billeisen and local artist Todd Drake remain engaged in a community-informed art project called The Talking Mobile. Addressing student concerns on issues of diversity and respect, the project has helped students make the transition from two campuses to one.

Ultimately, Billeisen can add the title of “architect” to his resume; he is a man who is dedicated to building a strong community in Greensboro’s newest public high school. Let that be a lesson to us all.