Glen and me

At some point in our lives almost every one of us can point to someone and say, “this person made it possible for me to earn a living.” Such is the case with my old illustration instructor who taught me at Utah State. I graduated from there more then 40 years ago, but when Glen Edwards had an exhibit here in Ogden at the Union Station gallery recently, I was more then excited to go to the opening. Glen is retired, of course. But when he taught illustration at USU he was a brand new instructor, only a few years older then most of his students. (He even married a friend of mine in the same year as I was, Barbara, who was also at the opening and was a great pleasure to see and talk to once again.) I certainly wasn’t one of his greatest students, but I was good enough to earn a living as an artist and that was all I ever wanted to do. I was rather shy back then, (hard to believe, isn’t it?), and Glen quickly figured out that he would have to bring me along slowly and a little more carefully then normal. It took me a couple of years, but with his help, I managed to grow into a fairly confident, creative person. The most important thing that Glen taught me, was how to actually paint, the technical aspects of using board, paint, brushes and all the other stuff that goes along with creating the finished work. I had a pretty creative mind but knowing how to translate the idea into finished art was very important to me. The most amazing thing about Glen is that he loves to paint; I have never known anyone else on this planet that has a passion to put paint to board the way that Glen does. He would often do as many as 3 or 4 portraits in our 8-hour illustration studio class. I still have a portrait he did of me in class once, hanging on the family room wall. Glen is not a big guy, as you can see from the photo and I am actually not as tall as I look there. But for a small fellow he has an enormous heart and an incredible talent. Thanks Glen for helping me become an artist.