Historical Lehi
Wanlass finds the long route, or “zigzag,” is the best approach
Lara M. Bangerter | Lehi Historical Society
Editor’s Note: This is the second of a three-part series on world-famous automotive artist and Lehi native Stanley Wanlass. Tune in next week to learn more about his accomplishments, what he has learned throughout his illustrious career and how “to be successful, you have to get a few scars.”
After graduating from Lehi High School in 1959, Stanley Wanlass attended BYU. His interests were vast, so he studied a myriad of topics before finally landing on a Bachelor of Fine Arts.
He studied medicine so he could learn not only morphological anatomy and cadaver dissection but also kinesiology, which helped him understand the configuration of muscles as the bones changed positions. He studied art history, the old masters, classical literature and music. “I thought I had wasted my time,” said Wanlass of his winding path through school, “until all of these things kind of came together.” In time, he realized these disciplines helped him understand how to invoke the senses and set a mood in art.
“I was always taught that the best and fastest way to get to your goal is a straight line, but I soon found out that’s not true,” said Wanlass. “I have found that zigzag is the best. I picked up things here and there from other people and their experiences, and a better way through literature and history.”
Since then, Wanlass has traveled the world showing his paintings and sculptures and teaching at universities in the United States, Canada and abroad at the European Art Academy in Paris and the Université de Grenoble in the French Alps.
After teaching in France, Wanlass and his wife, Joyce, a former Miss Utah, chose to make their home in Oregon, in an area where he served a full-time mission for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. For years, the couple traveled the country in a motorhome with their five young children, attending art shows and selling art. It was the only way to make an art career possible and keep his family together. Wanlass said many questioned his lifestyle, but the family was happy, and their efforts paid off.
Wanlass’s career really took off in the mid-1970s, when he was commissioned to create the Bicentennial Memorial to Northwest Seas and Trees in Everett, Wash. The work stands 14 feet tall at its highest point and weighs 40,000 pounds.
Today, Wanlass has created multiple Lewis and Clark monuments as well as other heroic historical monuments, including the Orrin Porter Rockwell Monument, “The Protector,” in the garden in front of the Legacy Center. With still more in the works, his monuments can be found along both coasts.
By the early 2000s, the family was living in Utah again. During this time, Wanlass had a lot of fun with the Utah Fast Pass charity event sponsored by Larry H. Miller. Forty to 60 supercars from around the world were invited to participate in the multiday event. It started with a day at Miller track “to get the speed out of our systems.” Then, in the following days, the participants traveled 1,000 miles through the Red Rocks of Utah, visiting the small communities that would benefit from the event.
Participants not only allowed children in these towns to sit in their cars, but they also offered rides and raised money for municipal projects, disabled children, scholarships, children of fallen officers and firefighters, Navajo Christmas and more.
In the eight years he participated, Wanlass created a painting each year, which was auctioned to benefit the charity. It brings him great joy to think about how desirable his paintings were and the significant financial contributions they made. Some of these paintings will be on display at Lehi Heritage Day.
His love of cars also led him to design and patent a laid-back ’32 roadster windshield, known as the Wanlass Windshield. “Its original purpose was to make it look downright nasty and enigmatic,” Wanlass chuckled, “but the raisin in the cookie was to change the lift/drag coefficient of the car.” The windshield is manufactured under the names “Rodworks and Rebel Rods.”
