About Arthur
Arthur Swanson Vossler (Art) was born in Baltimore, Maryland in 1933 to Henry Thomas Vossler and Evelyn Mary Vossler (born Santmyer). He was named after an uncle named Arthur Swanson. His parents divorced sometime during his childhood, and he and his siblings ended up in various children’s homes and foster care. He spent some of his youth living with a foster mother in rural Carroll County Maryland. That rural farmland experience stayed with him throughout his life and influenced his art.
He graduated from Dundalk High School (Baltimore, MD) in 1952. His yearbook photo shows his nickname as “Einstein”, and his quote as “Be simple in nature but complex in mind.” So he was a smart kid, and especially liked physics. And as it turns out, he discovered his art talent through drawings and sketches in his physics notebooks, so he took an art class in high school, but that was his only formal art training.
He knew he was smart and wanted to go to college, but didn’t have any way to pay for it. One day as he was sweeping the floors at the local steel mill where he worked at the time, he realized that he would never earn enough money for college that way, so he enlisted in the Air Force. That eventually took him to the Nevada desert where he participated in testing bombs. He also met his future wife (Janice Winstead) while passing through Oklahoma as a young, handsome uniformed Air Force serviceman. After serving his time in the Air Force, he got married and headed to college at the University of Maryland, intending to major in Physics.
After the birth of his first child, he switched to Electrical Engineering because he thought it would make him more employable for his growing family. Smart move, as the family eventually grew to include two more children. He spent the first part of his working career at NASA, then moved over to NOAA, where he worked on communications systems for satellites. At home, he played with his children, and always had an art project in the works. Later in life, his eyesight and health declined, and with it, his art activity. He succumbed to various addictions at the relatively young age of 60.
About this Gallery
This Gallery was created by Kevin Conner, Art's grandson with a lot of help from Art's surviving children Teri Conner, Nancy Baker, as well as a number of Art's grandchildren.
Some paintings were digitally restored to hide minor damage.
To learn more about Kevin visit: www.kevinconnercreative.com
