Drawing Room owner enjoys role in Metuchens artsy mosaic

By JESSICA DAMICO

Staff Writer

Above: Ed Wetzel works on Metuchen Home, a pen/ink, watercolor rendering of a house in the borough, at his studio. Right: Will, an oil study on canvas by Wetzel. As an artist whose creative roots were fostered in the borough during his youth, Ed Wetzel is now sowing seeds to cultivate the aesthetic skills of others of his ilk.

A lifelong Metuchen resident and owner of The Drawing Room, a gallery and classroom space along Main Street, Wetzels passion for art has bloomed where it was planted.

It has come full circle in a sense, he said. Im very fortunate.

Acknowledging his good fortune seems to be a mantra for Wetzel, perhaps drawing students to him as much as his finely honed art skills.

One of nine children growing up in Metuchen in the 1960s, Wetzel was able to pursue his passion through a barter deal that had him cleaning the pool of neighbor and celebrated artist Joan Arbeiter in return for lessons in portraiture. The well-known feminist artist, who became Wetzels mentor, would later get him a job teaching at duCret School of Art in Plainfield, where he still instructs.

And despite the uncertainty that comes with trying to make a livelihood in the arts, Wetzels parents stood behind him 100 percent, he said.

I think with that many kids, whatever you were interested in and whatever kept you occupied, they would foster, he said.

After high school, he attended the Newark School of Fine and Industrial Arts, also studying at duCret and the Art Students League of New York. In his travels west during his 20s, Wetzel attended the Colorado Institute of Art in Denver and the Academy of Arts in San Francisco.

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Drawing Room owner enjoys role in Metuchens artsy mosaic