Whether it was a gallery show, a homecoming parade or a community event, Oak Park artist John “Jay” Boeldt’s involvement always added energy and creativity. But the last event he had a hand in orchestrating was intentionally low-key.
Three weeks ago, a dozen fifth-graders and a handful of relatives stopped by the house to celebrate his son Daniel’s 11th birthday with a poker-themed party.
“He kept it very simple,” said his younger sister, Cindy Farber, who recalled that Mr. Boeldt’s elaborate Halloween decorations were the pride of his Oak Park neighborhood, just as the floats he designed in high school in Indianapolis were the highlight of local parades.
“He always had a goal,” she said. “His final goal was to be there for Daniel’s birthday party. He kept (the party) small, to what he could handle.”
Mr. Boeldt, 48, died Thursday, Sept. 30, in his Oak Park home after a months-long battle with liver cancer.
“He was wonderful that day. Whether you knew how horribly he felt, for 5 1/2 hours, he was normal,” Farber said.
Since high school, Mr. Boeldt had been the consummate organizer, said his husband, Wayne Franklin. The couple were together for 15 years and married in April in Iowa, where same-sex marriage is legal, a few months after Mr. Boeldt received a prognosis that his cancer was terminal, Franklin said.
“We knew we could not wait until Illinois made (same-sex marriage) legal,” Franklin said. “We didn’t have time.”
Mr. Boeldt made the most of his life even before his diagnosis, Franklin said. Mr. Boeldt owned the Plan B Gallery in Forest Park. There he showcased local artists and drew crowds to the developing “hipster” scene in the town’s Madison Street district, said Jodi Gianakopoulos, who owns The Old School Records across the street.
Mr. Boeldt lured customers to the neighborhood with art shows and by chatting up passers-by outside his gallery.
“You could be around art and not be around pretentiousness,” Gianakopoulos said. “He had a cool, hipster gallery that could have been in the city or anywhere. He would’ve done real well in New York, but he was a good Midwestern boy at heart.”
Mr. Boeldt joked that his trademark style of layering heavy enamel paint over line drawings or photographs was part Andy Warhol, part “paint-by-numbers,” said friend and fellow painter Emily Rutledge.
When his gallery closed amid the recession two years ago, Mr. Boeldt became an artist in residence at the Flat Iron Building’s Catawampus Gallery in Bucktown. Gianakopoulos said she was amazed that Mr. Boeldt worked on his art full time while remaining involved in his community and his duties as a devoted father.
The family’s yard was meticulously landscaped and was home to a large vegetable garden as well, Franklin said. Mr. Boeldt designed the children’s gallery at the Delaware Museum of Art while the couple lived in Wilmington and created a Monica Lewinsky-themed exhibition in 1998 while they lived in Columbus, Ohio. In Oak Park, Mr. Boeldt, a former Boy Scout, led a mural painting project for local Girl Scouts and was active in the parent-teacher organization, among dozens of other community projects.
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“He always had the most creative ideas. He would just take whatever project and always put 1,000 percent into it,” Franklin said. “He was never satisfied with just getting it accomplished.”
Stephen Daiter Gallery, 230 W. Superior St., Chicago, will host a show of Mr. Boeldt’s artwork from 2 to 5 p.m. Sunday. Services will be held in Indianapolis.