Flint Township View

Gallery’s November exhibit celebrates memory of founding member




FLINT — Buckham Gallery will honor the life of founding member and former president Tom Nuzum during the gallery’s upcoming exhibit, beginning with an opening reception during Flint’s Second Friday Art Walk on Nov. 11.

The Tom Nuzum; An Artist’s Artist, will feature paintings by Nuzum, who died in February 2011 after an 11-year battle with cancer. The opening reception is 6-9 p.m. Nov. 11 at the gallery, 134 W. Second St. in Flint and is in conjunction with Second Friday Art Walk in downtown Flint. Mott Community College will also host an exhibit in his honor.

It is certain to be a celebration, said fellow founding member and friend, Sam Morello, who was Nuzum’s work colleague.

Nuzum, a former Mott Community College Professor, helped found the gallery in 1984 with a group of enterprising artists. The gallery was founded as a center for innovative and diverse contemporary visual and performance art for Flint and surrounding areas.

Nuzum attended the California College of Art where he received a B.F.A. and M.F.A and acted as student body president. After teaching at San Francisco State, he became a Fullbright Scholar in Valencia, Spain. Following teaching positions at Murray State, Kentucky and the University of Wisconsin, Nuzum moved to Flint where he taught art at Mott Community College from 1973 until the time of his death.

Former student Tim Kranz said Nuzum taught his students, “not to see anything as too sacred, unorthodox, or not good enough.”

“Probably the things I’m most grateful towards him for were the ways he encouraged us to ‘fly’, let us discover things on our own, and (most likely) unintentionally boosted my self-esteem without me knowingly soliciting it,” said Kranz.

“As an instructor now myself, I admire the way he would tell give someone a suggestion, advice, wisdom, etc and if they didn’t listen, he’d make his point and walk away. I don’t seem to be able to do it but, admire it still.”

Details: e-mail manager@buckhamgallery.org or call 810-239-6233. — G.G.


Leave a Reply