The Pine Journal - Cloquet, Minnesota -
[Cached Version]
Published on: 11/25/2002
Last Visited: 11/28/2003
Our Neighbors ... Terry AndersonThe Pine Journal - Cloquet, Minnesota
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Our Neighbors ... Terry Anderson
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Terry Anderson works in his home studio, finishing off a piece of his original jewelry.
Terry Anderson can turn a heart of stone into something beautiful....
The talented Cloquet craftsman is one of four featured artists currently exhibiting at Duluth's Lizzards Art Gallery during its holiday show, "To Each His Own...," which runs through Dec. 24.
Anderson's lapidary, jewelry and rare stones lend a unique counterpoint to the blown glass, mixed media and pastels of the other featured artists in the show.But in each of his carefully crafted creations, there is a touch of the man himself....
Anderson was born and grew up in a rural area of Blue Earth County near Mankato.One of four children, he helped out with the family farm, where they raised turkeys.
When Anderson was eight years old, a retired neighbor decided the young boy needed a hobby, so he took him to a rock shop in Mankato and bought him a rock tumbler and some polishing materials.
"He collected rocks, too," said Anderson, "and I really got excited about it.It wasn't until years later that I found out he had charged the stuff to my dad!"he laughed.
And so, Anderson became a full-fledged "rock hound" in a big way.
"Our family took some trips tenting out west, where I found petrified wood," he said, "and we also went to the south, where I found agates.For many years, we also went to Grand Marais, where we used to dig for Thomsonites - those little pink stones found around there."
He learned to polish the stones and turn them into jewelry, and in high school, he made quite a bit of money selling them to people, which he said helped out with school expenses.
He also became part of the Minnesota River Valley Rock Club in Mankato, whose members encouraged him in his hobby and gave him lessons.
"They taught me how to cut stone," he said, "work with diamond equipment and use a rock saw."
After high school, he left the hobby for a while and his parents took it over, using his rock finishing equipment and thoroughly enjoying it well into retirement.
"It's interesting that now I'm going back into it again...." he said.
Not surprisingly, when Anderson began college at Gustavus Adolphus, he initially decided to major in geology.
"Although I liked the geology part, I didn't quite like the mathematics," he said."I ended up by getting intrigued by fine arts, visual arts and art history.I took some courses from a great sculpture teacher named Don Gregory, who encouraged me to get into materials work and ceramics."
While attending college, one night Anderson went to a football game on a blind date with a young woman named Vicki.
"I didn't really like football, and she decided she didn't like it, either," he said, "so we left!We remained friends all the way through college, and we later got married toward the end of graduate school."
Anderson graduated from Gustavus with an art degree in 1969.
"The people in the art department encouraged me to go on to graduate school in ceramics," related Anderson, "and one of the teachers was the student of Glenn Nelson, who wrote one of the most famous books on ceramics of that time, ‘The Potter's Handbook.' My teacher got me into a graduate program with Nelson, and I also had the opportunity to apprentice with Minnesota sculptor Paul Granlund for a year.
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The studios also allowed Anderson to continue to pursue his own work in the arts, and he created ceramics to sell and exhibited his work in shows in Madison and surrounding areas.
"At that point," he related, "I did mostly the arts-and-crafts-style of stoneware and porcelain.I had learned a lot about it when I had earlier studied blue-and-white porcelain in Kyoto, Japan."
Anderson's wife, Vicki, was in medical school at the University of Minnesota when he went to teach at Mount Scenario, and as he was heading for Ladysmith, she was heading for Cloquet to intern for general practice in the Rural Physicians Associate Program.
"We eventually had to decide what we were going to do," said Anderson."Either she would become a physician in Ladysmith or a physician in Cloquet, which we both liked.She had gotten to know a lot of the great people here, so we decided, ‘Let's move to Cloquet!'"
They moved here in 1973, where Vicki became a physician at Puumala Clinic and Terry became the first director of the Duluth Art Institute at its new facility in the Depot.
He later got a job in continuing education in the arts at the University of Minnesota-Duluth, where he remained for 28 years.
Three years ago, he was encouraged to apply for a job with the University of Minnesota Extension Service, where he became the district director for the northeast region, working with 12 different counties.
"It looked very tempting at the time," he said, "so I thought I would do something a little bit different.But little did anyone know there would be all the retrenchment, cutbacks and changes that the Extension service has since undergone."
Anderson was very active in many organizations in the area, serving on school board, library board, and in many other capacities.
His pursuit of the arts has never been far removed, however.For a time, he used to have a small ceramics studio at his home, where he gave lessons to folks from around the area in his spare time.
"We had a great time and held studio openings and everything," he said, "but everything was pretty crowded.
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Anderson said he had always enjoyed teaching sculpture, and a lot of jewelry work is just using the same techniques on a smaller scale.
"I found I could do everything I liked to do, but in a smaller studio space," he said.
Anderson has been developing his pursuit of lapidary and jewelry making over the past seven or eight years, and most all of the rocks and gems he uses for his jewelry are things he's either collected, found or gotten at estate sales or auctions.
"When I was small and our family went out west or somewhere," he said, "you could collect rocks in a lot of the open areas in the state and federal parks back then.Now, most of those lands are off limits and you can't do any collecting at all.The only places that are not off limits any more are maybe some jade fields in Alaska, some areas in Oregon where you can look for jasper, and in Montana, where you can find moss agates along the rivers.
Other than that, most everything is either posted or owned privately."
And so, Anderson discovered that the next best way to collect rare and unusual stones is at people's estates.
"There are people who've collected rocks for many, many years, and I keep an eye out for ads in ‘Gem and Mineral' magazine, ‘The Lapidary Journal,' or other national magazines for estate sales," he explained."Sometimes I might see an ad that says something like, ‘Forty-year collection of a small rock shop in Missouri.Two-day auction.' I take the truck and maybe bring a friend along and go down there.I might end up with a truckload of stuff, and I keep what I want and sell the rest.I've found that that's almost as exciting as rock hunting!"
Anderson also goes to gem and mineral shows, one of the largest being one in Tucson, Ariz., where thousands of dealers from all over the world exhibit their collections.
Anderson said he usually buys rocks in their rough state and cuts and finishes himself.As part of his continuing education work at UMD, he did a lot of traveling, and for eight summers, he helped spearhead a Chinese Landscape Painting and Watercolor Workshop in the People's Republic of China.
"It was a six-week study course, and a lot of people from all over the U.S. who were interested in Chinese art would attend," he said."I would go and get the group started for the first week or two, and then I would go around to antique shops and look for things like old jade pieces, rock sculptures or antique jade amulets.We also ran programs like that in Hungary and England."
Anderson uses a variety of techniques in creating his unique jewelry creations.
"I think it's exciting to have different techniques that I can use rather than be locked into one particular style," he said.
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Anderson created 85 pieces to exhibit at the holiday show at Lizzard's Gallery, and on opening night they sold 10 of them right off the bat.
"The show was nice to get ready for because it got me focused," he said."I now have more of an organized b
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