Playing outside on the streets of southside Chicago was too dangerous. Owning a television? Not even a possibility.
So Nathaniel Mary Quinn’s father made him draw. From brown paper grocery bags to the walls of his apartment, Quinn would draw every day on any blank surface he could find. If he could only learn a skill, his father knew, Quinn would do all right in the world.
By the time he was a college freshman in one of Professor Greg Huebner’s art classes, it was clear to Huebner that Quinn wasn’t just going to do “all right.” He would excel.
“For a kid who had a really rough beginning, he just gave it everything he had,” Huebner says. “He was like a sponge. Anybody who has that sort of approach to what he’s doing in a class is going to keep doing that when he’s not in class.”
“When I was growing up, I just loved creating,” Quinn says. “It wasn’t until I came to Wabash when Greg Huebner started speaking this crazy language to me about being a full-time artist—he sounded really nutty. But he really helped sculpt for me a vision of what this could become.”
Huebner became an example for Quinn, sharing his own art with him and inspiring Quinn to keep creating. Huebner taught him the basics—from composition to color theory—but he also encouraged Quinn to dig deeper with his art.
“Greg taught me to be fearless,” Quinn says. “He was really big on making work for which you had a personal conviction. Something deep within that would drive you. That you should do this and explore those things.”
Quinn had no family left, but when he needed someone to talk to, Huebner was there.
“He was very dear to Mary and myself,” Huebner says. “Those kids just need someone to listen to them—someone who’s not a roommate. It was always our treat, and hopefully it was helpful to him.”
Though he usually encouraged the young artist, sometimes discouragement was the best course of action.
During Quinn’s sophomore year, he went to Huebner for advice before he proposed to his girlfriend. Huebner laughs now, remembering how he advised Quinn not to do it and how grateful Quinn was to him a month later when he and the girlfriend broke up.
Quinn was finishing his Master of Fine Arts at New York University when he mentioned to Huebner that he was considering going for a PhD in social psychology. So Huebner flew out to New York to talk him out of it.
Huebner remembers sitting in Washington Square and telling Quinn, “You’ll have to put your art away, and you’re too good at this. Anybody can get a PhD. Not everybody can be an artist, and you’re a damn good artist.”
“He said that to me, and I listened,” Quinn says. “And he was right.”