Meet the other Glen Michaels
GLEN MICHAELS IS A FAMOUS
ARTIST.
Glenn Scott Michaels isn't.
Once upon a
time in smaller, less sophisticated world, I was an inept 98-pound high school
wrestler, a JV cross country mediocrity and a wanna-be intellectual
in suburban Detroit. (Imagine how popular I was!)
Thus, you can imagine my
surprise when several teachers - adults I respected - approached
me in a hallway between classes and congratulated me on my latest artistic
accomplishment, honor or award. Either the Detroit News, the Detroit Free Press or
the Birmingham Eccentric had published an article
trumpeting the success of FAMOUS LOCAL ARTIST, Glen Michaels. Except, you see,
it wasn't me. I'm Glenn Michaels.
Of course, newspapers being what they are, not
infrequently the journalist would misspell Glen's name... as Glenn.
The first
time it happened, I simply said "thank you." I had no idea why I was being
congratulated. But heck, I didn't mind.
Eventually, I figured out what was going
on. (My cousin, Frank Siden, was a noted area art dealer). Thereafter, being the
humble sort, I was forced to admit that I
wasn't the artist referenced in those articles.
In fact, I
had no interest in the visual arts at all, back then. (I thought they were for…
you know, those other guys. The guys that were bullied even more than I
was.)
Oddly enough, Glen Michaels taught around the
corner from my parents' Bloomfield Hills, Michigan, home, at the renowned
Cranbrook Academy of Art. We never met.
Years later, after I had graduated college and
lived in a teeny- tiny little house I shared with a musician roommate ("Riz"
Chris Everson) in Troy, Michigan, the FAMOUS ARTIST called on the phone. (This,
children, was in the days before cell phones and computers!)
Mr. Michaels wondered if I might have mistakenly
picked up his dry cleaning when I picked up my own. I hadn't. What I didn't tell him was that I couldn't afford to have my clothes
dry cleaned.
Nor did I tell him that I had recently entered
an art school (the Center for Creative Studies [CCS], located in downtown Detroit). I
didn't think that he would have been impressed. I wasn’t. I was so woefully
inept as a draftsman that a smart person would have advised me to stick to
wrestling.
Some years thereafter, I actually considered
applying to Cranbrook's art school. But it was far too expensive! Besides, I
doubted that my portfolio would have satisfied the school's requirements.
As it
happens, I wrote a required paper on Walt Whitman's Leaves of Grass at the request of
a scary looking senior (MM) at CCS. She needed the essay to complete her requirements and graduate. (MM always wore a black leather jacket
and what I thought was a scowl.) At the time, I didn’t realize that this was unethical.
MM traded me a
painting for the effort... a lovely painting, too. And to tell the truth, I
really enjoyed researching the topic and writing the essay. It was joy to
encounter a true democrat (Whitman). Later, the aforementioned young woman attended
Cranbrook! But that's another story.
Anyway, here we are in a world so different from
the one I grew up in that I might as well be a bit player in the wonderful
sci-fi novel, Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert Heinlein.
Nonetheless, some 40 years later, Glen Michaels
is still a FAMOUS ARTIST. Glenn Scott Michaels is still himself!
In August
2009…
I
visited Ball Consulting in Tempe, Arizona, to purchase more casting supplies.
The sales associate that helped me went to his computer to determine when I had
last purchased a specific item.
He looked up my name on his system, then asked
me if I had recently moved. It seems that the only purchases currently listed
for someone with my name since January of that year went to an address in
Michigan.
Bless his art, Glen Michaels is obviously still
hard at work. I guess both of us are hard at work. May his work flourish and his
name shine!
I stand in the reflected glory of his devotion
and accomplishment grateful to know that a profound commitment to creative work
goes hand in hand with a long and, I am sure, fulfilling life.
