On the top floor of the fine arts center lives the art department. Each classroom, gallery and office is unique, but some stand out more than others.

Inside associate art professor Jeff Jensen’s office, several rows of different football helmets make their presence known immediately. Cal, NC, Titans, NT and other shortened school and professional team names grace the sides of the multi-colored helmets.

A photo of a young Bowling Green High School cheerleader, his daughter, sits on his desk. Lava lamps and a Communist party Pravda (“Truth”) newspaper from decades ago hint at an era long past.

A strange, colorful chair with a snake, a Toucan Sam-like bird and other jungle animals sits in a corner. On the opposite end of the room is a similar chair that is being chewed apart by massive beetles.

Jensen specializes in graphic design, but he leaves room to explore much more.

“As you can see, I like stuff,” the football-player-sized professor said.

He grew up in the small town of Hampton, Iowa, where he played sports. But sports weren’t what Jensen wanted to do forever.

“Art was really what I wanted to do,” he said.

He planned to be a “political, serious artist.” But he found himself unhappy with what he was doing and where he was, so he decided to create big, colorful and happier artwork.

Jensen got married. He said his wife brought to his attention that they needed him to make money.

“Artists went to school to make art, not make money,” he said.

Jensen, who holds a BFA, MA and MFA from the University of Iowa School of Art and Art History, began his career at Western in 1986. He now teaches illustration, drawing and other courses.

While he was finishing his master’s, someone playfully teased him, “Jeff, what are you going to do with that? You’re going to be in design – your work has to be functional.”

Jensen chuckled, thinking of how he proved the contrary.

“So I decided to make chairs you can’t sit in,” he said.

Jensen is interested in the three-dimensional aspects of everything. When he sees something, he tries to figure out how he could interpret it in 3D.

Ideas come to Jensen in the form of chairs. Sometimes he does a drawing in a journal, and other times his ideas end up as pastels.

Jensen designed the previous football uniforms and helmets for Western’s team and built a helmet display for the locker room.

“I wanted to figure out a way to help them out,” he said. “I’ve enjoyed it very much.”

As the artist and art consultant for the Guthrie Tower and Plaza project, Jensen was entrusted with a box of old photographs from Lowell Guthrie, brother of the late Korean war veteran Sgt. 1st Class Robert Guthrie.

He asked the family who they wanted in the memorial, then he chose different photos for the eight panels of granite etchings. Jensen went to Washington, D.C., to view the Korean War memorial so he could help create the Guthrie memorial the way he thought it should be done.

On the day of the dedication, Jensen met two of the veterans in his design, one of which was Virgil Miles. Jensen said that Miles looked at his own image and told Jensen that the day the photo was taken was the coldest day of his life.

“Listening to him talk was very emotional,” Jensen said.

He became close to Lowell Guthrie because of this project and values his friendship highly.

“That ended up being one of the best things that ever happened to me,” Jensen said.

But Jensen said he hasn’t reached his greatest accomplishment.

“It hasn’t happened yet,” he said laughing. “As an artist, I don’t think you can say you’ve ever done the best thing – you’re always doing what’s next.”