Former AEDC employee and well-known local artist Don Northcutt remembered

  • Published
  • By Philip Lorenz III
  • AEDC/PA
ARNOLD AIR FORCE BASE, Tenn. --  Manchester resident Don Northcutt, a well known local artist who came to AEDC in 1952 to work as a technical artist, has died.

For 40 years, Northcutt rendered scenes of Middle Tennessee into timeless images that will preserve old barns, country stores, train depots and homesteads long after they've been torn down or faded into history.

AEDC's Vickie May and Janice Willis said more than 20 years ago one of Northcutt's drawings became "the gift" presented to all of AEDC's civil service and active duty employees upon their retirement.

May, AEDC's protocol officer at Arnold for more than 20 years, never met Northcutt but said the significance of his artwork went beyond monetary value.

"When a person comes to me planning a retirement, one of the first things they ask is 'will I get the Northcutt print?'" she said. "It's that special. It represents AEDC - it has the test facilities in the background and it has the wildlife. It just captures the spirit and essence of AEDC, of why AEDC is so unique and special.

"We mat and frame it and it's hanging on many walls all over the country."

The following inscription is on the back of every Northcutt print presented to AEDC's DOD and active duty retirees:

"This drawing illustrates the Arnold Engineering Development Center - a unique blend of nature and technology. The Canada Geese and White-Tailed Deer in the foreground are only two of the many species that flourish on AEDC's 40,000 acres of Middle Tennessee woodland. In the background, beyond the retention pond used to clean cooling water before it is released to a 4,000-acre reservoir, stands the J-4 altitude rocket motor test cell. The J-4 is one of 40 test units, many of them unique that are used to test and evaluate the nation's future aerospace systems. AEDC's complex of test units makes it the largest and most advanced test centers in the world."

Janice Willis, an Information International Associates graphics illustrator at AEDC, worked with Northcutt from 1975 until he retired. She said Northcutt did large, precise drawings of all of AEDC's test cells, space chambers, arc heater facilities, wind tunnels and rocket motor testing facilities during his career. However, what she remembers most about him is the type of person Northcutt was and why that was significant.

"He was very laid back, a fun person," Willis recalled. "I'm telling you he was a character."
Willis said Northcutt's work is enduring, iconic and "awesome."

"I still have drawings that he created and David Hiebert, AEDC's historian, does too," she said. "I have some of his work at home."

Among the rural and small-town scenes Northcutt rendered in pen and ink drawings are old railroad stations.

"I have all the old railroad station [prints], since my husband worked on the railroad," Willis said. "Most of his artwork, he would frame it in old wooden barn-looking wood."
She said Northcutt preserved history for everyone to enjoy.

"Many of those old railroad stations have been torn down," she said. "They don't exist."
Northcutt served as the Coffee County Commissioner for 20 years and also refereed high school baseball, basketball and football games.

The Viola, Tenn., native moved to Manchester in 1940 and worked for the state as a surveyor. He then went to work at AEDC as a technical illustrator before retiring in 1988 after 36 years. His first art showing was in 1972 at Old Stone Fort Art Show in Manchester.

Northcutt sketched "thousands" of scenes of life and places throughout Coffee County and surrounding counties.

Mike Northcutt, ATA's outage coordinator, is Don Northcutt's son. The younger man said his father's passion for drawing, during his career at AEDC or the artwork he produced and sold at art shows around the country, was the same.

"He just touched many lives with so many different kinds of drawings; he did old buildings, people, old home places and animals," Northcutt said. "He drew thousands of them.

"And then going to art shows, they would just swarm at his booth, there was always a line."

The last picture Don Northcutt drew was in October 1994 and he didn't finish it - a drawing of Cedar Lane Market in Tullahoma.

Mike said his father's rapport with friends, or people he had met for the first time, was consistent.

"He never met a stranger," he said.

Later in life Don was diagnosed with macular degeneration, a medical condition which results in a loss of vision in the center of the person's visual field.

Mike said his father took his condition in stride, even after it progressed to where he could no longer do his artwork.

"One thing I told the preacher who preached at his funeral, he never complained after he lost his eyesight," he said. "He always said he could find somebody worse off than he was."

Over the years, Northcutt traveled with his wife Carolyn throughout the United States participating in art and craft shows.

Mike said he knows that some of his father's artwork went to all 50 states in the U.S. and is known to be displayed in Germany, England, Japan, China, Australia, Yugoslavia, Russia and at least one other country.