Eric Nelson Obituary

Eric Nelson, Artist, Fly Fisherman, Grandpa
Eric Nelson,79, was born in Aurora, Illinois, on October 7, 1945. He died peacefully at home, with his wife and daughter by his side, on Friday, June 20, 2025, after a long struggle with osteoarthritis and lung cancer. Eric grew up wandering and exploring the woods and fields of Illinois farm country. He was fascinated by nature: animals, birds, trees, plants, flowers, insects, everything wild fascinated him. He once climbed a tree and took a baby squirrel home to raise. He raised a baby crow that enjoyed riding around on his dog's back. His interest in art began at this young age as he experimented with different media: pencil, pastel, watercolor, and paint. Things in nature and scenes of the farmland he loved were nearly always the subjects of the art he created in his early years.
Although his fascination with art and nature took hold early and continued throughout his life, other things caught his interest as well. During high school he worked for a Swedish grocery store where he often delivered groceries to elderly Swedish ladies who enjoyed getting "secret" deliveries of snuff. He was asked to keep this a secret, a fact that amused him greatly! Although humorous, this may have been the beginning of his interest in other cultures! During college he spent summers working for the railroad. One summer his job required him to disassemble old coal-fired steam engines using welding tools, perhaps influencing his later sculptures made of scrap metal.
He began college as a math major in order to please his dad but after taking a course that had something to do with "finite vector spaces" he followed his heart and became an art major. He received his MFA in Sculpture from the University of Iowa in 1974. Following graduation, he maintained the Art Studio at Indiana State University Evansville for 2 years, then taught sculpture there until being hired by Middlebury College to teach sculpture and design. He and his wife moved to Vermont in 1978 and never looked back. His daughter, Leah, was born in Middlebury in 1982. He received tenure and continued teaching and showing his art (both sculpture and photographs) until he retired.
His art was exhibited in both one person and group shows in galleries around the U.S. (New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Virginia, Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Rhode Island, New Hampshire and Vermont) as well as at the Moulin a Nef, Auvillar, France. His piece "Three Hundred Sixty Five: An Idea and the Reality" was, perhaps, his most challenging as well as his most delightful. His idea was to create a piece of sculpture every day for one year. Each piece was carved out of a piece of wood about 4 inches high that stood on its own small platform attached to a wall. His favorite way to exhibit it was to have the pieces mounted at eye-level encircling a gallery so people could walk along and see each piece easily. Although the plan was to finish it in one year, in reality it took 8 years to complete!
In addition to art, Eric played tennis and was an ardent fly fisherman. He spent many happy hours fishing in favorite Vermont rivers as well as several of the big rivers out West. He and his wife and daughter (when she was young) enjoyed travelling. They visited many of the States in the U.S. as well as many countries in Europe. But his favorite moments were spent with his grandsons, Alden and Andrew, playing games, reading books, teaching them to fish, building things with them and being silly together.
He will be greatly missed by his wife of 53 years, Dottie Nelson of Middlebury, daughter and son-in-law, Leah and Christopher Green and grandsons Alden and Andrew of Centerville, MA, brother and sister-in-law, Jeff and Gina Nelson and niece, Sarah Beth, of St. Paul, MN, nephews, Dan, Phil and Kent Bateman and their families, of Illinois and cousins, Tracy and Rick Brown and George and John Sensor. He will also be greatly missed by his "Pizza Night Family", a group of friends in Middlebury who have gotten together every Friday night for over 40 years!
A celebration of Eric's life will be held on Saturday, August 2, 2025, at the Champlain Valley Unitarian Universalist Church, 2 Duane Ct, Middlebury, VT starting at 1:00pm.
To send flowers to the family or plant a tree in memory of Eric, please visit our floral store.