Story posted Wednesday, March 10, 2010
Gift That Lasts A Lifetime
Glenview Artist Has Had Knack For Sketching, Painting Since Childhood
By DENISE FLEISCHER Lifestyle Editor
Glenview artist Dan Siculan talks about one of the many paintings housed in his basement studio on Friday, Mar. 5.
Glenview resident Dan Siculan knows a thing or two about sketching portraits and architectural paintings.
The 87-year-old artist has had a flair for using a pencil since he was four years old. Even therapy for a recent stroke hasn't stopped him from working in his home studio, sketching portraits for veterans or lifting his paintbrush to an ivory canvas.
"I grew up in Ohio, the youngest of five boys and one sister," Siculan told the Journal. "Dad was a steel worker in the Ohio Valley and mom a homemaker."
Eighty-three years ago, young Dan began sitting at his mother's sewing machine table with pencil in hand. When he was 12, the women in town noticed that he had a gift for using a pencil.
"So they got me a scholarship and I went to Oglebay Institute in Wheeling, West Virginia. I went there for a couple of months," Siculan said.
He appreciated the art instruction and was glad to assimilate any techniques presented, incorporating them into his own style.
"I've always been an artist, even during the war I was classified as an artist in the Army," he stated. "After the war, an employment service in Columbus, Ohio, found a spot for me at a packaging company on Michigan Avenue."
He worked across from the Art Institute, in the old Railway Exchange building. As a package designer, he illustrated food and other items, which were placed on packaging.
"It was a great way to get my beginning in the Chicago art scene," admitted Siculan who has lived in Glenview since 1957. "I worked there four years, went to work for another company for about a year, and I've been freelancing ever since."
Recently, his oil and watercolor architectural paintings have been selling in downtown Chicago galleries. He used a 35mm camera for architectural subjects, more recently a digital camera, then sketched his subject matter on large canvases. His oil and watercolor paintings have depicted the Art Institute, North Michigan Avenue, Tribune Tower, the Wrigley Building and Art Deco-era buildings.
Siculan has also sold his work at local art festivals.
Sketching portraits of veterans is something special he enjoys doing. He created numerous sketches during sessions at the Chicago Medical Center.
According to Joyce Pottinger, director of the Glenview Senior Center, Dan's done sketches of local veterans, as well.
"Dan sketched pictures last November at the senior center at the veterans program," stated Pottinger. "Twenty four sketches were done of veterans in their uniforms. It shows the people who came to our program. We played Taps and threw a wreath onto the water."
Their rank in the military was included and displayed on a mobile bulletin board.
Glenview Journal sales executive and former Marine Lloyd Kuehn remembers entering the Park Center last November as a participant in the senior center's Veterans Day program and being greeted by Siculan.
"He said that I should stop by after the program because he wanted to take my picture. I had no idea he was going to do sketches of all of us from those photos and turn them into a display," said Kuehn.
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