Gordon Bryan Heath

1935 - 2024

GORDON BRYAN HEATH.

January 15, 1935 - December 22, 2024.

Gordon Heath, beloved husband, father, grandfather, artist, and teacher died at Hospice Austin's Christopher House on December 22 with family at his side. He was 89.

The cause was complications following a fall at home.

Gordon spent three decades instilling a love of art in his students at Baldwin Senior High School in Baldwin, N.Y. A graduate of Pratt Institute and Brooklyn College, where he earned an MFA degree in Art, Gordon was influenced by the abstract expressionists and revered the lyrical abstractions of his favorite painter, Richard Diebenkorn. He began his career as an illustrator and worked as a painter, printmaker and photographer throughout his teaching years and after he retired in 1992. He bought a state- of- the- art printing press for his classroom and opted for encouragement instead of the brutal critiques he and his peers experienced as art students. As a result, he left a lasting and profound impact on his students, many of whom he continued to mentor decades after they graduated. One former student described him as, "an art teacher extraordinaire and an influence to so many."

Posting in a Baldwin High School Facebook group in 2011, Gordon's students remembered their time with him.

"Gordon just always kept it real," one student wrote. "Maybe it was the times, but he was just as much a teacher as a peer. He never talked down to you and he saw everyone's potential. As far as I'm concerned, there are lots of professional artists out there in many mediums, but they're simply not good enough to have done what he did."

Another student wrote: "I loved his classes. Because of him, I used to carry a sketchbook with me wherever I went and my drawing ability got so much better. (Still carry one sometimes). To this day, I still love drawing and painting and benefit from what he taught me."

Gordon was also a lifelong athlete. He played ice hockey, tennis, paddle ball, and when his knees gave out, became an avid golfer as much for the people he met as the sport itself. He coached the Baldwin High School ice hockey and tennis teams.

Gordon got his start in the classroom in Lakewood, N.J. where he and his late wife, Carolyn, lived in a garage apartment overlooking a chicken farm, a fact they learned only after waking up the first morning to a chorus of clucking. Mollie and Izzy Warsaw, who rented them the apartment, became the young couple's lifelong friends as did their daughter, Mindy, and her family. Gordon fondly remembered Izzy, an artist and inventor in the style of American cartoonist Rube Goldberg, waiting for him to return from school each day with the newspaper ready so they could discuss the headlines.

Gordon Bryan Heath was born on Jan. 15, 1935 in Hartford, Conn. to Jennings Bryan Heath, who worked for the Pennsylvania Railroad and Pauline Menninger, a homemaker. He was raised in Wakefield, Mass. and earned a Bachelor's degree in Fine Arts from Pratt Institute in 1960 and a Master of Fine Arts degree from Brooklyn College in 1973.

He met Carolyn Maher, who also grew up in Wakefield, Mass., at a mutual friend's wedding. They married on Jan. 21, 1961, and moved to New Jersey and then New York, where Carolyn taught Latin in the public schools from 1978 until her retirement in 2001. The couple moved to Venice, Fla. the next year. Throughout their lives, they were resolute in their commitment to social justice causes and to workers' rights. They campaigned for civil rights and, toddlers in tow, marched against the war in Vietnam. In 1979, the couple joined a successful protest against the opening of the Shoreham Nuclear Plant. They remained committed members of the New York State United Teachers (NYSUT) and donated to many progressive causes and organizations.

Camping trips to New England with their kids and golden retriever, Caitlin (named for the wife of Welsh poet Dylan Thomas), gave way to annual visits to Akumal, Mexico where they rented a house with friends, trips to England and to Italy, where they explored cathedrals and Roman ruins, to Brazil, where they visited their son, Ted, and his wife, Sandra, who were living in Sandra's home town of São Paulo and eventually, to Austin, Texas, where, in 2008, they greeted the arrival from China of their only grandchild. Granola, as Carolyn was nicknamed, and The Kid, as Gordon called himself, shared many happy and loving times with their adored Caroline.

Gordon was shattered by the death of his wife in 2021, a tragedy his natural buoyancy, curiosity about the world and care for his neighbors helped him navigate. At the senior community where he lived with Carolyn too briefly before her death, he spent Wednesday mornings discussing the headlines at Coffee and the News, introduced his neighbors to his favorite dessert, the Coke float, and rediscovered Thornton Wilder's play "Our Town." The story of fictional Grover's Corners, N.H. resonated with his childhood in a small New England town.

Gordon will be forever loved and missed by his son Theodore Heath and his daughter-in-law Sandra Hunnicutt, of Yorktown Heights, N.Y., daughter Jennifer Heath, son-in-law Clay Robison, and their daughter Caroline Chun Robison Heath, of Austin, Texas, his sister Carole Heath, of Chelmsford, Mass. and brother Kenneth Heath of Philmont, N.Y., their families and his many friends at Atria at the Arboretum. Gordon is preceded in death by his loving wife Carolyn Marie Maher Heath.

Gordon's family will hold a private celebration of his life in Massachusetts where he will be laid to rest alongside Carolyn. In lieu of flowers, the family asks that donations be made to Hospice Austin's Christoper House and the American Civil Liberties Union. Condolences may be sent to the family at jenaheath@gmail.com.