December 10, 1941 - May 2, 2015 Glenn Raymond Ossiander, a longtime participant in the art and cultural scene of Pacific Palisades, died on May 2 at the age of 73 from complications of kidney disease. Ossiander had a long career in advertising, most recently in the late nineties as creative director for the Los Angeles Times consumer marketing department. After retirement, he re-established his earlier career as an artist, exhibiting paintings in galleries nationwide. He is survived by his wife, Cindy Rule Dunne, whom he married in 1996, his brother Robert, two sisters, Linda Haenn and Donna Gale, a daughter, Julie Jones, sons Dennis and Joseph Ossiander, stepson Patrick Dunne and seven grandchildren. He is pre-deceased by his son Brian, who died in 2013. All his children were from his first marriage to Gail Joseph, whom he met in high school in Philadelphia. That marriage ended in divorce, as did his second marriage to Carol Voorhees of Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Ossiander was born in Philadelphia on December 20, 1941; just weeks after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. His father, Glenn, served in the United States Navy, but abandoned his wife and five children in 1949. The family never saw him again. His mother, Lillian, struggled to keep the family together under dire financial circumstances. His decision to pursue a career as a commercial artist was inspired the one man in his blue-collar neighborhood who wore a white shirt and tie, whom he learned was a commercial artist for the Philadelphia Inquirer. Already exhibiting an artistic talent, Ossiander graduated from a vocational-technical high school and won a scholarship to the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. His first job was at a small advertising agency in Philadelphia as a layout artist. With that foothold in the business, he worked his way up to Art Director at N.W.Ayer, a large agency in Philadelphia and New York. In 1976, Ossiander moved his family to the Lehigh Valley in Pennsylvania, where he worked for Bethlehem Steel as an art director in their advertising division. Soon after starting this job, Ossiander was asked to make a film for supervisors on how to spot alcoholism among employees. It was a pivotal moment in his life. He entered the company's rehab program and stayed sober the rest of his life. Ossiander went on to finish that film and he stayed at Bethlehem Steel for 8 years. After he met Cindy Dunne, a California native who would become his third wife, Ossiander landed the job at the Times, and they moved to Pacific Palisades in 1997. Throughout his career in advertising, Ossiander's passion for painting never wavered, and after leaving the Times, he began painting full time. His work has been exhibited at many galleries, including the George Billis Gallery in Los Angeles, Gallery IMA in Seattle and the Trinity Gallery in Atlanta. His abstract expressionist paintings hang in many private, public and corporate collections. After being diagnosed with liver cancer in 2006 and receiving a liver transplant in 2008, he found painting increasingly difficult, but continued to seek ways to make art. The invention of the iPad provided him with the ability to create digital art, which he could then exhibit as prints. Ossiander has also been an active patron of the musical arts, serving on various boards, including the Lehigh Valley Chamber Orchestra in Allentown, PA and Music at St. Matthew's in Pacific Palisades. He loved all kinds of music, from blues to baroque, but his favorite was classical. His Christian faith was a major source of great strength, and he and Cindy were actively involved as congregants at The Parish of St. Matthew. Services will be held there Sunday, May 17 at 4pm, 1031 Bienveneda Ave., Pacific Palisades, 90272. A second service will be held at Trinity Episcopal Church in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania on May 30. Before his death, Ossiander asked that donations in his name could be made to the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
Published in the Los Angeles Times on May 10, 2015 - See more at: http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/latimes/obituary.aspx?n=Glenn-Raymond-Ossiander&pid=174826376#sthash.yMukvMRM.dpuf