Rod Crossman Describing What Words Cannot With Art

God has given Professor Rod Crossman a gift and a joy for expressing what words cannot and for teaching his skill to his art students. On any given day on the Indiana Wesleyan University campus you can see him teaching classes in the Beard Arts Center. On this autumn day Professor Crossman is in his afternoon painting one studio art class on the second floor of the art center, here we will drop in on him as he begins class.

"Art is the thing that expresses what there are no words for", says Professor Crossman, as he sits back in his chair. The class listens intently as he puts a few more strokes down on the canvas. The room is quite drab and empty except for a few canvases and easels distributed throughout it. A fly annoyingly buzzes around the room. At one end is a group of students scattered around a single easel. Sitting next to this easel is Professor Crossman. He is wearing a button-down shirt and jeans. His face is cheerful and the skin covering it is beginning to show the wrinkles of time creeping through. He has dark eyes covered by glasses and he has a steady deep voice. His large hands move across the canvas in long quick strokes as he paints and talks.

Professor Crossman started out in very humble beginnings. He was raised in upstate New York and originally came to Marion College as a psychology major. "I had such a strong interest", he says, speaking of his artistic beginnings. Because of that interest he decided to take a drawing class. He did extremely well in his first art class and so he took another and from there it snowballed. "At that time there was no specific Art major so it was fairly easy for me to take these classes". He soon changed his major to one of more creative studies and by time he graduated he had a two year scholarship to go and study in Florence, Italy. After receiving his Masters of Fine Arts, he moved back to the United States where he was married and the newlyweds moved to central Indiana.