Biography

Marvin Bartel

Emeritus Professor of Art, Goshen College

TEACHER

Bartel was a member of the art faculty at Goshen College from 1970 through 2002. He taught courses in art education, ceramics, photography, drafting and architectural design.

Dr. Bartel continued as a consultant, lecturer, workshop and seminar leader in art education and in creativity education. His essays are posted at his Art Education website. He continued to be an active artist, writer, and traveler.

Prior to coming to Goshen he was tenured at Northeast Missouri State University (now Truman University) where he brought ceramics to their art department (1965 to 1970). Earlier he taught drawing, painting, and design at Bethel College (Kansas) and headed the creative arts at Prairie View Mental Health Center, Newton, Kansas. Bartel began his career at Topeka High School (Kansas) in 1960 teaching ceramics, jewelry, and other art courses.

EDUCATION

Dr. Bartel held master’s and doctor’s degrees in art education from the University of Kansas. He majored in art at Bethel College (Kansas), also studying art at Washburn University and Wichita State University. His pre-college years were spent attending public schools, doing chores, daydreaming, drawing, and tinkering on a family farm in Kansas.

BEST TEACHER

Bill Smith is remembered as his best teacher at Hillsboro High School. “In ninth grade, Mr. Smith put us all into teams and had us each safely master the metal shop processes. He then expected us to fabricate something we had designed from scratch. Many of us made one-of-a-kind motorized farm machinery using parts from behind the barn or from ‘Junk Wiebe’s” community scrap yard. There were no impossible ideas in Mr. Smith’s class.”

ARTIST

Bartel maintained his own ceramics studio in Goshen, Indiana until 2019. Bartel’s work has been shown in many national, international, and regional exhibitions including:

24th and 25th Ceramic Nationals,
Everson Museum of Art, Syracuse, New York
American Jewelry Today Scranton, Pennsylvania
Craftsmen of the Central States, Museum of Contemporary Crafts, New York
9th Annual Own Your Own Exhibition, Denver Art Museum
18th Annual Decorative Arts and Ceramics Exhibition Wichita, Kansas
Cerritos Ceramic Annual, Cerritos, California
National Cone Box Show Kansas University, Lawrence, Kansas
National Cone Box Show, Purdue University, West Lafayette, Indiana
Ceramics International, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada.

Bartel’s work was regularly selected for the Annual Elkhart Juried Regional Exhibitions, Midwest Museum of American Art, Elkhart, Indiana. He won the Best in Ceramics award in 1992 and 1995.

INVENTION

Bartel authored “A Revolutionary New Kiln” published in Ceramics Monthly in September, 1990. This describes his research and invention of US Patent #4,139,340, Kiln Heat Exchanger. Bartel’s kilns significantly reduce fuel usage by using the waste fuel gases to preheat the combustion air up to 2000 F before it is mixed with the fuel.

CONSULTATIONS

After retiring from teaching full-time, Bartel conducted sessions on creativity, assessment, and/or other teaching topics with teachers in Michigan, Missouri, Nebraska, Colorado, New Jersey, Indiana, Washington, Illinois, Wisconsin, Washington D.C., and at a bilingual school in Brazil, South America. He did design work for a nature center and developed questions and strategies used to motivate creativity with self-instructional art kits.

FAMILY BACKGROUND

Marvin was the great-grandson of immigrant farmers and farmer/preachers from Prussia, now Poland. Earlier generations were located in the Netherlands. He was the grandson and son of Kansas farmers. His grandparents had three years of elementary education and his parents each had two years of high school education.

He and his wife Delores enjoyed a small orchard and garden. They were active members at the Eighth Street Mennonite Church, Goshen, Indiana. Their family includes three married children (two scientists and an IT consultant). They have six grandchildren.

Résumé for Marvin Bartel, EdD Art Education, updated March 2023