Legacy of Gordon Borsvold

Gordon Borsvold grew up in Detroit, and dreamed of designing cars. During high school, he put together a portfolio of car designs, and took it to the Ford company, but they didn’t hire him. Instead, he joined the army and worked as a graphic designer. It was during that time that he got to know an artist from New York City, who inspired Gordon to switch from commercial art to fine art.

After his years of military service, he returned to Detroit and entered the Art School of the Society of Arts and Crafts in Detroit on scholarship. He secured employment working in model shops, building scale models of anything from computers for the Burroughs company to a monkey seat for Chrysler Aerospace.

In the 1960s, he moved to the Upper Peninsula in search of a nice place in a rural area. After a stint in Baraga County, Gordon started working a a full time artist, primarily doing ceramics, first at a home he built in rural Chassell and later in Beacon Hill near Freda. After his home and studio burned down, he started working with anthropologists from Minneapolis on finding clay for brick building, but finally settled down in Keweenaw County living at the 5 Mile Point Sand Hills Lighthouse as a caretaker. After about 5 years, in 1988, Gordon bought his home and studio in Boston Location.

At the age of 89, Gordon Borsvold passed away in his sleep on August 7, 2024. When I heard about this and saw the photo Keith Johnson posted on Facebook, I sort of recognized him...a blast from the past when people used to meet at the Omphale on 5th Street in Calumet. So I asked around, and Pat Toczydlowski invited me to see his place and have a conversation about the good friend and neighbor who was like an uncle to her children.

Gordon was an amazing artist. He is best known for his sculptures created from pieces of discarded metal, wood, plastic and stone that he picked up in his wanderings.

Ed Gray published a book about Gordon, and in it Gordon reflected “Reclaimed stuff for my art, it’s kind of a natural progression from when I was young. My father could never throw much away. In Detroit he would walk the alleys and pick up things on the way home from work, fix them, and give them away. It was the environment I grew up in. It was just the way I was raised…. Everything I see has potential.”

And Gordon saw potential in people, too. For years he found tremendous joy teaching Sculpture and Graphic Design to students in the Michigan Tech Summer Youth Program, and clay and woodworking with the residents of Oak House in Houghton. Cynthia Cote, founding director of the CCCAC told me, “I got to know Gordon at the Copper Country Community Arts Center where he taught weekly Very Special Art Classes for many years. He loved art and he recognized the genius of pure uninhibited creativity. He was kind to the students, many of whom had multiple disabilities. He spent time with each and every student encouraging and supporting them in their art making. I remember he would often use the word 'magnificent' when describing their work, and I know he meant it.”

Eventually, Gordon started working with tempera paint on paper and other surfaces, creating hundreds of paintings featuring bold splashes of color to create rich abstract designs. He rarely sold these, or even gave the away because he never considered them to be finished. Even with his sculptures, he enjoyed tinkering with them after they were “done”, and he felt the same way about his paintings; that they were somehow “unfinished”.

Pat commented that having Gordon for a neighbor was an unplanned blessing. “He was an utterly unique and interesting individual who lived simply and inspired creativity and self-expression in others.”

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Stop by the Copper Country Community Art Center during September to see paintings by Randy Wakeham. He earned his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from Finlandia University's School of Art and Design, and recently completed painting a colorful mural commissioned by the City of Hancock on Quincy Street just south of the Ryan Street Garden. Randy loves painting water in landscape, and his work evokes a love of the Copper Country with its beautiful lakes and streams.