Learning art outside of the classroom
by: Judy Petree, Public Relations
Fall 2002

For 40 years, professor emeritus Philip Thompson's hands-on teaching took students out of the clasroom to urban archeological digs and Orthodox icon restoration.

Even though art professor emeritus Philip Thompson retired two years ago, there is always something to do. He says that artists never get bored, and he has stayed connected to Augsburg by teaching calligraphy and glass knapping classes through the College of the Third Age.

But sitting in an ivory tower is not how Thompson spent his 41 years at Augsburg, either. Whether unearthing the wealth of treasures from the past on campus, or reaching beyond the borders of the College with his students, he showed them that there is more to a college education than sitting behind a desk. "Departments have an obligation to partake in the larger affairs, rather than isolate themselves," Thompson says. "There is a time for that, but one must learn how to balance the two."

Thompson, born in Bismarck, N.D., received his B.A. from Concordia College-Moorhead and his M.F.A. in studio art from the University of Iowa. He came to Augsburg in 1959. At that time there was no art department, and only a few art classes were offered through the home economics department. Thompson was instrumental in the formation of the art department, and the mid ’60s saw the hiring of the art faculty at which time art was added as a major.

Being at Augsburg College, in the heart of the Twin Cities, has been an important part of Thompson's work, both on and off campus. "This is a tremendous haven for teaching art, and being anchored in a community with lots of interaction is healthy. It's important to stretch across neighborhood borders."

In the late 1960s, Thompson and his students "stretched" all the way to northern Minnesota, north of Grand Rapids, where they found a challenging art project. The Russian Orthodox Church of St. Peter and St. Paul in Bramble, Minn., with its onion dome, was completed in 1918 and fell into disuse during the 1940s. In 1967, led by a clergyman from Grand Rapids, an effort was made to restore the church. Thompson was asked to paint 35 icons, which would complete the church1s icon screen.

Thompson enlisted several dozen of his students, who researched the style, technique, and content of icon painting before embarking on the project. With their painting, the project was completed in spring 1971.

Closer to home, his strong interest in urban archaeology led to his conducting digs on the Augsburg campus, once primarily a residential area. They collected a variety of artifacts, including bottles, porcelain dolls, marbles, and even an old civil war period projectile. He also conducted digs at homestead sites in Carver and Pine Counties. Thompson said that interest in this sparked some of his students to pursue archaeology either as a career or a serious hobby.

Thompson's own contributions to the campus and off campus are numerous. A recent addition is the stained glass cross located in the corridor outside the chapel. Thompson used glass from Trinity Lutheran Church, saved when the church was torn down to make way for the freeway. Outside Augsburg, Thompson's work is in collections or on display at the Sioux City Art Center, in Sioux City, Iowa; the Pillsbury Research and Development Center; the Minnesota Museum of Art in St. Paul; the University of St. Thomas; Moorhead City Hall; Rourke Museum in Moorhead; and the Plains Museum in Fargo. He has also restored rotunda paintings at the Cass County Courthouse in Fargo and sanctuary murals at Bethlehem Lutheran Church in Mankato.