Mr. Flanagan was my art teacher all through high school. He encouraged me to explore art without being judgmental.  He was like a cheerleader for me. He generally admired what I was doing and it made me feel worthwhile because most adults I knew were trying to do the opposite.

At the end of each semester, he’d sit down with me and say let’s go through what you did this semester. By following my own creative leanings, and with freedom to pick my own projects, he still needed to make sure I met the class requirements. He’d show me how different things I’d done met various goals, like understanding perspective or demonstrating shading, and so on. If I was missing in any area, I’d create a work to satisfy it.

He never showed the class his work, but I’d seen it at shows. I think the fact that he was a very good artist himself gave me respect for his ability. I especially loved his watercolor painting. I also think the fact that he was a very good man gave me respect for character.

Once, I had pinched some very ugly clay ash trays (I planned on doing a lot of smoking). I was going to throw them away - but Ken insisted we fire them and see how they turned out. After the firing, he told me that they were destroyed and he felt really bad about it. I told him I was sorry and I figured I had done something wrong that made the pieces explode. He said, “No, you didn’t — and I have something I want to give you.”  He presented me with a beautiful copper bowl he had hammered by hand. I said, “Oh, great! I can use it for an ashtray” (not realizing it was an insult to his work). I was beside myself and loved it. We used it as an ashtray for many years. 

I came to learn later that it wasn’t a kiln mishap that ruined my work. Some other student had taken all my pieces and smashed them in a fit of frustration. I think Ken probably kept that secret to keep me from retaliating and getting myself and the other student in trouble. I heard from someone else who the person was, but never held it against the guy. Mr. Flanagan and I both knew he was a troubled kid. Years later, the same guy that smashed my work gave Mary and me a beautiful purebred dog that we loved for many years. 

Ken also encouraged me to try to paint with oils. Against my better instincts, I found a scrap of poster board that I thought I’d use. I didn’t know how to thin the oil paint so I dabbed the paint on, mixed the colors right on the cardboard. It started to look like a stucco wall. My friend, David Andersen, said, “You should keep going on that, it looks great.”

It reminded me how the sun came in my window and lit my bedroom wall. So I worked to make a sunlit stucco wall, a board floor, and then I added a shaker board with pegs. I was into Andrew Wyeth at the time and liked the sparse feeling of this experiment. Then I added a striped blue tie hanging from a peg and called it done. I threw it in the garbage. Ken checked back and asked, “Where’s your painting?” I said I tossed it, explaining I was just playing around and it wasn’t very good. I thought that was that. But then I found out later he had entered it in a state-wide art contest sponsored by the Milwaukee Journal and I took second place!

Ken told me the  Vice Principal wanted a photo taken with me and my award for the local newspaper. I told Ken I’d be glad to do that with him but wanted nothing to do with that Vice Principal. So Ken, again trying to protect me from myself, told him I just wasn’t interested.

Many years later, when the Marshfield Clinic sponsored an art exhhhibition to showcase the artists that had their beginnings in Marshfield, Mr. Flanagan came to see his former students. He asked me what additional art training I had completed. I told him, “None. Just what you taught me.” He was so proud of me and so pleased with my work, I well up when I talk about it. The last time I saw him was when he came to my dad’s funeral. I loved that man.