• In this Issue >
  • Features
    • From the President
    • 258 years of trade unionism
    • Beware of the man behind the screen
    • Artists at Work
    • Capturing the essence of her subject
    • Giving new personality to old metal scraps
    • Honorable mentions
  • Union Front
    • What’s in the SAP?
    • Closing loopholes
    • Auto Dealership
    • Michigan workers vote ‘yes’
    • Workers get a first contract
    • UAW wins big settlement
    • Organizing Roundup
  • Departments
    • From the Readers
    • World of Work
    • UAW 101
    • Safer Work
    • Still Solid
    • Skilled Trades
    • Workers' Words
    • Phipps' Tips
    • Green Corner
    • Solidarity Index / Past Issues

Photo: ANTHONY T. TOMASI

Prince of the City, a pencil drawing by Elizabeth Jordan

ELIZABETH JORDAN

Capturing the essence of her subject

By age 6 she could barely keep herself from drawing and drawing. But as she matured, Elizabeth Jordan’s priorities changed. And as an adult, Jordan put aside creative aspirations to pay more attention to working and taking care of her family.

“I laid it down for 20 years,” said Jordan, describing her talent as a God-given gift of using ordinary subjects to uplift and heal.

A welder at DaimlerChrysler’s Toledo (Ohio) Machining Plant, she has been a UAW member for seven years.

Jordan said she regained interest in art when the call for entries came the first year of the Artists at Work competition. After entering for several years, she submitted three pencil drawings this year and won first place.

Her winning “Prince of the City,” Jordan said, is characteristic of many of her works. She based the drawing on a photograph she took of a 21-year-old man standing on a bridge with the Toledo skyline in the background.

“I met this young man on a city bus, and right then I knew I had to draw him,” Jordan said. “He had such high cheekbones and wonderful features. He is a sweet young man, who is just trying to make his way in the world.”

Jordan specializes in what she calls urban-centered portraits of “individuals or couples, parents with children or groups of people.”

In 2005 Jordan rendered a family portrait for former Chrysler Group President and CEO Dieter Zetsche. She also created a charcoal portrait of UAW Vice President Nate Gooden, director of the union’s DaimlerChrysler Department and co-chair of the UAW-Daimler-Chrysler Joint Activities Board.

The drawing features dual images. In one portion of the artwork, Gooden is at a podium, passionately making a point. In the second, “he is looking forward, maybe to the future,” Jordan said of Gooden, who will retire in June.

When presented with the portrait at the recent UAW-Daimler-Chrysler Annual Meeting and Joint Training Conferences in Las Vegas, Gooden and Jordan received standing ovations.

Jordan’s portraits have been exhibited at the Toledo Museum of Art and other galleries throughout Ohio.

“I feel that this is my gift from God,” Jordan said. “I’d like to share it. I’d like to encourage others to put their gifts to work and not just sit on them.”

Sandra Davis