Gordon Dingman

Gordon L. Dingman, nationally recognized artist and educator, died at Casa Grande on May 9th following a brief illness.

A Memorial Service will be held at 1:00 P.M. Sunday, July 13, 2014, at Emblom Brenny Funeral Service in Little Falls, MN, with Morrison County Chaplain Gregg Valentine Officiating.

Inurnment with military honors will be held in Oakland Cemetery in Little Falls, MN, following the memorial service.

Gordy, as he was affectionately known to his family and friends, was born on September 28, 1928 in New Ulm, Minnesota to Harry and Edna Dingman.He is survived by his older siblings Robert Dingman and Jean Stone, his wife Jill, his sons Scott and Robert, their wives Benita and Martine, and grandchildren, Ryan and Mya.

A life-long learner, Gordy earned degrees in both education and art from St. Cloud State College, the University of Minnesotawhere he studied under renowned potter Warren MacKenzieand the University of Kansas where he earned his MFA.He began his career in 1950 as the 21-year-old elementary school principal on the Red Lake Indian Reservation in northern Minnesota.Following Army service, which included wartime deployment to Korea, Gordy began in 1957 a university teaching career that would eventually span nearly six decades of instruction in pottery, sculpture, drawing, design, aesthetics, art history, and art education.Late into life he continued to mentor and train young artists in his pot shop at Central Arizona College, where with great generative spirit and satisfaction he worked until shortly before his death.He is grieved there by a loyal group of long-term students deeply grateful for his willingness to share his knowledge and to pass on his skills.

Gordy was honored as an Outstanding Educator of America in 1970.

Known not only as a stoneware potter of the first order, but also for a series of remarkable ceramic murals he created in the upper Midwest, including a 90-foot mural in the town of New Ulm, Minnesota, Gordy remained creatively active until late in his life.He held Gallery shows of his pottery in the Casa Grande area, and accepting a commission to create woodcarvings of the Stations of the Cross for the Chui Chu Mission in Chui Chu, Arizona.Those who knew his work well witnessed with amazement a late-life flowering of his creative energies, as the full maturation of his skill and aesthetic sensitivity took place his seventies and eighties. This creative period included not only the production of fine art, but also the publication of a book, My Familys Journey,that culminated decades of research that Gordy had done into the history of the Dingman family.

Gordy left much enduring beauty in the world, in art now scattered far and wide, and in the spirits of those whose lives were blessed by his presence.