Tom Anderson
Tom Anderson is an emeritus professor in the Department of Art Education
at Florida State University. He was a named professor at the time of his retirement,
and had served as the chairperson for four years. Among the many classes he taught
were concepts and methods of studio production. He has been a practicing photographer,
trained in Miksang photography. He combined photography and drawings/collages/etc. to
create sense-of-place artist journals and taught artistic journal-making to hundreds
of students in the FSU International Programs in Prague, London, Valencia, and Florence.
So far he has about 30 hand-drawn, hand written, personal journals and had several
exhibitions arising from these journals. He is a co-founder of the international
children's peace mural movement
(https://www.kids-guernica.org) .
In this project begun in 1995 and commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of the bombing
of Hiroshima, there have been 400 or so murals executed by children and adults working
together, all over the world, using art not as the end but as the tool. Anderson also has
co-produced two full length videos with Barry Fraser: one about painter, Mark Messersmith,
called A Sense of Place , and the second called Out of Sight, which is a
55-year documentary of Anderson's high school band, still active today. (Both
are available on YouTube.)
When Covid hit, Anderson built an art studio in his back yard in which he made his
first easel painting in 45 years. He finds comfort and solace in his art space,
working through self-imposed artistic/thematic/technical problems. "I just totally lose track
of time back there," he says. "If you don't believe me just ask my wife."