Birth: 1944, Ottawa, Canada
Death: 2024, Bellingham, Washington, United States
Education:
Diablo Valley Community College
Arizona State University, Bachelor of Fine in Photography in 1973
University of Colorado, Boulder, MFA in mixed media studies in 1979
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About Ted and His Artwork
Ted's artistic talents were noted early on by his art teacher in elementary school, at a time when learning disabilities made traditional schooling a challenge for him. His creative (satirical) mind took great joy in juxtaposing images and objects from popular American culture with images and stories from the “dark side of capitalism.” A thrifty person by nature and circumstance, he never spent a penny on art supplies, preferring donations from artists who were moving and junk from hauling jobs. Ted put his vast knowledge of history, economics and art to work to pay tribute to miners, labor organizers and to call attention to, in his words, “the systematic extermination of Native Americans by railroad interests and the economic colonization of our Central and South American neighbors.”
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​​​Although he started in Architecture at ASU, he soon switched to Fine Arts, falling in with a tight and talented bunch of faculty and students in the photography department. He devoted himself to black and white photography, printing his own work in whatever darkroom was available. His friends and fellow photographers admired his ability to find beauty in everyday people and ordinary places. He loved Arizona and made lifelong friends, continuing to visit each winter.
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After graduation from ASU, Ted moved to Boulder to study photography at University of Colorado. He was encouraged by professor Jerry Kunkle to switch to mixed media studies, which better suited his creative urges to incorporate text and found objects in his work. While at CU, Ted discovered a large collection of texts and photographs on western U.S. labor and Native American history at the University’s Norlin Library. This research sparked much of his subsequent work including his “Dick & Jane in Retrospect” portfolio of drawings and quotations.
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Following graduate school, Ted and fellow artist, Mary Jo Maute partnered up and moved to Billings, MT where their daughter Iris Maute-Gibson was born. He loved their Southside neighborhood – photographing Cinco de Mayo celebrations, rallying support for local art projects, social justice organizing, camping and photographing at Crow Fair, and canoeing on the Yellowstone River.
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To confound the assumption of art as a precious object, he made mixed-media pieces from society's wastefulness. Most well received publicly, was his fabulous “Children’s Lunchbox” series. He meticulously repainted backgrounds of cast-off children's' metal lunch boxes with social-economic scenes from labor and civil rights history and war, creating cultural clashes with the banal “American Dream” foreground graphics.
​Ted was a documentary artist, interested in the histories of “ordinary people,” and how they lived. He held a variety of jobs – picking citrus, driving school buses, a forest firefighter bus and then semi trucks across the country. He took pictures wherever possible, and in his words, “most often getting fired for it.”
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In 1996 the family relocated to Bellingham, WA where Mary Jo worked as an Education Coordinator at the Whatcom Museum. Ted was an engaged father—volunteering in the Bellingham High School weight room, and supporting Iris’ work in the community. Karate and weight training were integral parts of his fitness regimen, which he dedicated himself to long after Parkinson’s disease took away his physical abilities.
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Along with visual art, Ted captured his experiences and emotions in poetry, often written alongside mileage marks in his truck driving log or the back of an envelope. His poetry shows a personal sensitivity, distinguished from his visual work.
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In addition to creating art, Ted taught art classes and workshops at colleges, adult education and community centers, and through the Artist-in-Schools Programs in Montana and North Dakota. His artistic honors included a National Endowment for the Arts fellowship and Canada Council Grant and an Art in Public Places Award from the Washington State Arts Commission.
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Although Ted exhibited his work in many states, he resisted reducing his art to a commodity, preferring to preserve his work for public engagement via museums and public art venues. He believed in raising consciousness and waging cultural revolution through the universal language of art.
​Exhibitions of Note:
2001 Photography Retrospective, Whatcom Museum, Bellingham, WA
2000 Social/Economic Childrens Lunchboxes, Skagit Valley College
1999 Social/Economic Childrens Lunchboxes, Allied Arts, Bellingham, WA
1994 Painted Lunchboxes: Scenes from American Third World History, Penelope Loucas Gallery, Tacoma, WA
1992 Ceremony of Innocence, touring exhibition through Montana Art Gallery Directors Assn.
1989 Ceremony of Innocence, Yellowstone Art Museum, Billings, MT
1988 For Those Who Dream With Open Eyes, The Brunswick Contemporary Art Center, Missoula, MT
1986 Dick and Jane In Retrospect, Northcutt Gallery, Montana State University, Billings, MT
1979 Life’s a Journey, Not a Camp, MFA thesis show, Henderson Museum, CU, Boulder
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Collections:
University of Montana, Missoula, MT, gift from the Miriam Sample Collection (2 Lunchboxes)
Donald Todd Collection, Denver Colorado