GARY WILSON
SPEAKER | TEACHER | ARTIST
GARY’S BIO
Gary Wilson was born in 1947 in Chicago, Illinois, and grew up near Philadelphia, Pa. After earning his B.F.A. from Bethel College in Minneapolis, his M.F.A. from Michigan State University, and experience as assistant curator for Kresge Museum of Art, he began working at Monroe Co. Community College as a Professor of Art. For 45 years, he taught courses in Ceramics, Drawing, Art History, Art Appreciation, and Creativity before retiring in Simpsonville, S.C.
The skilled artist specialized in clay and was honored with a People’s Choice Award for his featured work in street shows. He has given lectures and workshops at colleges, universities, churches, and art organizations in the U.S., Switzerland, Great Britain, and Australia. In addition, he and his son have created a 7-part video on “God and Creativity,” and he has been featured in a number of documentary interviews.
Mr. Wilson is married to Linda Wilson and has 2 children, his daughter, Danielle, and his son, Darren Wilson, a prominent faith-based documentarian. He is also blessed with 6 grandchildren.
SPEAKING
My hope for my future is that I might be able to contribute in some small way to an increased understanding and valuing of the importance of creativity and the arts within the body of Christ. Why not a new Renaissance within the church that creates works that communicate and celebrate the wonders of God? But this time, I believe, it won’t be about the artists but rather it will be about God. I think God spoke powerfully to me one day when He said, “If my church does not embrace My creative spirit, it will embrace the religious spirit”. Creativity implies change. The religious spirit implies stagnation.
So with these thoughts, I move into my retirement years with the hope of still being useful by bringing my 45 years of knowledge and experience as a working artist and college professor to the church. I believe God has promised me that my later years will be more fruitful than former years, so we will see.
CREATIVITY TOPICS
- Biblical Creativity: Creativity and the Church.
- Functional Creativity: Let’s Get Started.
- The Trinity of Creativity: Discovering Your “Style” in the Communicating Arts.
- The Watcher at the Gates: Fear, Failure, and Growth in Creativity.
- Theories of Origins of Creativity: Psychological, Humanistic and Biblical.
ART HISTORY TOPICS: Christian Art, Our Amazing Heritage
- The Beginnings–Realism Lost: Early Christian Art: The Age of Persecution and the Age of Recognition–The First 500 Years.
- New Beginnings–Realism Found: The Art of the Northern Renaissance.
- Michelangelo’s Faith and Art.
- “Matthius Grunewald and the Isenheim : The World’s Greatest Crucifixion Altarpiece.”
OTHER TOPICS
- Personal Biography: One Man’s Journey into the Heart of God Through Art.
WORKSHOPS
- Demonstration workshops in clay for upper-level education.
- Drawing workshops for adult beginners: An introduction to the basics of realistic drawing