Page 12 - Senior Link Magazine Winter 2025 - Online Magazine

Jerry Jordan Still Receiving,

Still Reflecting

by Jane Bromley

in 7th grade, but the experience A turning point came when he
convinced Jerry that he did not like discovered the W. R. Thrasher Art
failing. By middle school, he knew Studio in Paris, TX. “I thought, ‘I want
that success required determination to paint like that.’ I wrote several
and perseverance. letters to Mr. Thrasher asking him to
teach me. After weeks of rejection,
Jerry and his younger brother, he finally reconsidered because of
Harweda, were close all their lives. A what he called my ‘audacity.’” Jerry
simultaneous childhood diagnosis of spent time over the next two summers
polio, at ages 10 and 6, led to a shared learning from the older artist.
room at Lubbock’s Methodist Hospital
for treatment and the likely reason the “Because I was academically
two were “joined at the hip.” The boys challenged, I had no interest in
were blessed with parents (Clarence college. My dad spent $4000 in 1962
and Melba Huie Jordan) who to build me a studio.” Fortuitously,
recognized their unique gifts. “Even “the DECA program enabled me
though Dad was a farmer, he did not to sell $4000 worth of paintings my
pressure us to follow him in that line senior year. The seed was in my DNA,
of work. They both encouraged our and my parents had the wisdom to
gifts of singing and painting.” encourage it.”

very human being has a seed “When I was 13, my mother gave me a A friend of Clarence’s suggested
planted inside them at birth. paint-by-number set. After completing taking his aspiring artist son to Taos.
“ EIt contains their 'gift' to the the picture in the box, I used the “My parents were so supportive they
world. To the degree it is cultivated, it leftover paint to create something did just that. We stayed in the Kachina
will produce fruit that will make our original.” His grandmother said it Lodge, and I was enthralled by the
neighborhood/community/planet a was the prettiest thing she'd ever seen. paintings in the lobby, early works by
better place to live and thrive.” That Jerry was encouraged, and the seed the Taos Society of Artists. I thought
outlook reflects the summation of the began to germinate. again, ‘I want to do that.’”
life of one of West Texas’ favorite sons.
The teenager was attracted to Jerry graduated from high school,
Jerry Jordan was honored with three paintings wherever he saw them. married his sweetheart, and, in 1965,
of his acclaimed colleagues in October
2025, at the annual induction of the
West Texas Hall of Fame. The “seed”
inside the renowned Taos artist has
its roots in West Texas. He was born
in Lubbock, where his story began
in 1944. and raised in Ropesville and
Meadow.
In elementary school he was accused
of “not trying.” Dyslexia may have
been the underlying reason he was
held back in 3rd grade and again Photo Credit: Tim Board Photo Credit: Tim Board

12 Lubbock Senior Link