Denny Griffith is one of those people who somehow finds more than 24 hours in a day.

His occupation alone – as president of the Columbus College of Art & Design – demands plenty of time and attention, but he also swims daily, loves to cook and travel, and he works as much as possible on his “second job” as an artist.

Griffith, who is originally from the Detroit area, earned a bachelor’s degree in fine arts from Ohio Wesleyan University in 1974, and then worked as an artist-in-residence in Portsmouth. After that, he worked with the Ohio Arts Council and the Ohio Foundation of the Arts. He then spent 10 years as deputy director at the Columbus Museum of Art.

In the midst of all of this – and two decades after earning his bachelor’s degree – Griffith decided to return to school. In 1994, he received his master’s degree in fine arts from The Ohio State University.

“I went for my MFA 20 years after I got my undergrad basically because I wanted to pay people to be honest with me about my work,” Griffith says. “Being in the studio can be intellectually lonely at times, and the hardest thing to do is to be objective about your own work. I needed an artistic kick in the pants and that really began my journey as an artist.”

He has since received numerous fellowships and has participated in about 75 exhibits, mostly in the Midwest. Locally, Griffith is represented by Hammond Harkins Gallery, which exhibits his work though March 28, and participates in CCAD faculty exhibitions.

When Griffith was first named president of CCAD 12 years ago, he admits his artistic production suffered somewhat with the demand of the job. Since then, however, he’s become dexterous with time management. Whether that means spending an entire Saturday in the studio or taking 10 minutes during a lunch break to paint in a business suit, Griffith has created an extensive portfolio of work.

His ongoing “Under the Microscope (UTM)” series showcases his preferred technique of encaustics, painting with heated wax and oil paint (Griffith uses beeswax).

“I don’t draw first, I just go at it. I first heat the wax down and when it gets hot, the oil paint dissolves in the wax and that’s when it goes on the board,” he explains.


Everything is done on plywood, wood or gatorfoam panels because hot wax will flex canvas. The result is a colorful, textured and abstract piece of work.

“I’m a little obsessive about texture. It reminds me of walking down the street in a really old place – like Europe or Mexico – and seeing these stone walls that have been around forever. And they’re covered in scratches or old posters or something like that, and they just tell a fascinating story,” Griffith says.

He hopes people find his pieces visually intriguing from across a room, and that his work is fun and playful. Such frivolity might seem surprising, considering his source of inspiration.

Earlier in Griffith’s artistic career, his father was diagnosed with leukemia. The news provided him with an unusual creative inspiration: he began looking at photos of viruses and blood cells, as well as images captured by the Hubble Space Telescope, and using them as his muse. To this day, he continues to cut these styles of photos out of magazines or newspapers, and use them for extra motivation.

“In my mind’s eye, there is a correlation between the world we know and the ‘nano’ world. I look at these pictures and I don’t see cells or viruses, I see something beautiful and artistic,” Griffith says. “My work is not literal. I consider it kind of like landscapes seen through the lens of a microscope. It’s a translation – an improvisation – and I just want it to be fun.”

Getting to know Denny Griffith:
• Griffith’s favorite part of being the president of CCAD – one of the oldest art institutions in the country – is the students. “They have a light in their eyes. They want to change the world and it’s infectious to be around,” he says. “It’s an extraordinary and humbling position.”

• The hardest part is the constant change. “To keep up with the technological changes, the economic changes and managing them is a challenge. Especially because you have to do so while staying true to the values and mission of the institution and still stoke a sense of community,” Griffith says.

• Griffith and wife Beth Fisher, retired vice president of development at the Franklin Park Conservatory, love to travel, most recently to Buenos Aires with their son 28-year-old son Blake and his fiancée.

New paintings by Dennison (Denny) Griffith will be on display at the Hammond Harkins Gallery, 2264 E. Main St., Bexley, through March 28. www.hammondharkins.com.  

In addition to the Hammond Harkins Gallery, Griffith’s work can be seen at the Columbus Metropolitan Library, Rigsby’s Kitchen restaurant, Huntington Bank, the Huntington Trust Corp., The Ohio Board of Realtors, the Columbus Museum of Art, the Pizzuti Companies, Ohio Wesleyan University and Shawnee State University.

Alicia Kelso is editor of CityScene.