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Artist - Biography
A primarily self-taught American artist, Ron Oden is
driven by his love of fine art. He turned to commercial art
and graphics to provide a living for himself and his family,
and has produced story illustrations for newspapers and
magazines, print advertising images, page designs, product
illustrations, outdoor poster images, book illustrations and
spot illustrations for the clip art industry. Oden's work in
the field of graphics spanned from the hot type and cold
type era through the digital age.
Oden was born in St. John's Hospital in Santa Monica,
Calif., on Sept. 2, 1953. He started drawing at about age
eight, and began painting in oils by age 12 and at age 13
drew and painted school murals. Throughout his childhood,
his parents encouraged his art talent.
Oden attended high school in Hawthorne, Calif., beginning
in 1968 and studied art with the director of the school's
art program, Clayton S. Williams, who continued to be Oden's
mentor throughout his career.
Oden's mother and father separated during his high school
years, and Ron was sent to live with his father. During his
summer school break in 1970 at the age of 16, he took a job
with Spectrum Industries, a production art factory in Los
Angeles, to paint a series of tasteful decorative nude women
to be supplied to hotel chains. Desiring to continue his art
training after graduating from high school but coming from a
family with modest financial means, he had the harsh reality
of trying to finance a continued education toward fine arts.
Each year for some time Williams, his art teacher, had
been funding three of the most promising students to the Los
Angeles Art Center College of Design for Saturday life
drawing studies. Recognizing Oden's talent, instead of
awarding the scholarship to three students, Williams gave
all three sessions to Oden for a full year. Aside from
inspiring motivation in the young artist, Williams' gift
greatly enhanced Oden's ability to draw the human form.
Realizing that the young artist had limited financial means,
Williams also funnelled supplies to Oden as needed, and
occasionally found art projects for him to perform in
return. At his high school graduation ceremonies in 1971,
Oden was presented with a small, monetary award and plaque
from the Hawthorne Art and Cultural Society, for being the
most promising future talent to the community. Oden also was
given the Bank of America Achievement award and was voted
"Most Talented" by his fellow graduating classmates.
After graduating from high school, Oden enlisted in the
U.S. Navy and served two separate tours of the Pacific Rim.
In late 1976, he became an illustrator for Mercury Engineers
Inc. at SAMSO (Space and Missile Systems Organization) in El
Segundo. Several months later, he married Margaret Louise.
To support a growing family, he took numerous freelance
assignments. In 1979, he was assigned to a civil service
government illustrator position at the Fleet Combat Center,
Pacific located at Point Loma in San Diego. A year later, he
was assigned to the Naval Amphibious Base, Coronado and
designed and prepared training materials, illustrations and
publications for the Department of Defense.
While holding down his government position, Oden enrolled
at Cuyamacha Junior College in El Cajon under the G.I. Bill
of Rights for veterans. At the same time, he accepted
freelance assignments for local advertising agencies and
design studios in San Diego. After three years of government
work, he started his own design firm in San Diego, Oden
Enterprises, which lasted seven years.
In late 1985, the Oden family moved to Tahoe Vista, Calif.,
in North Lake Tahoe. He had a succession of jobs, including
with Media Consultant, a Reno ad agency; graphics editor of
the Reno Gazette-Journal; a job at the San Diego
Union-Tribune (now San Diego Union), in their creative
services (advertising) department; and Computer Sciences
Corporation (CSC) as a senior computer scientist
specializing in computer generated art and worked with naval
research scientists and engineers. He also worked in video
and animation applications and early Worldwide Web
development, through Technology Transfer programs.
In 2003, Oden opened a gallery, which sponsored his first
public exhibition. Today, in addition to spending time each
day on his fine-art painting, Oden continues his
illustration career. Recently, he has begun to carve
sculptures in marble and alabaster. To date, Oden has
produced more than 350 paintings, 1,000 drawings and life
studies and has illustrated numerous children's books, as
well as a book on 29 towns in Northern Nevada titled
"Stories from the Sagebrush, Celebrating Northern Nevada at
the Millennium." Ron continues to reside at Lake Tahoe with
his wife, Margaret.
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