Freddie Manseau last boarded an airplane in 1962, an 8-year-old traveling with his family to visit his grandmother in Boston. That single flight remains the only time the 71-year-old watercolor instructor has ventured beyond California's borders.
Yet for more than three decades, Manseau has guided hundreds of students on transformative artistic journeys without ever leaving his hometown.
Since 1989, Manseau has taught art in Santa Monica College's Emeritus Program and Community Education program, building such strong connections with his students that he recently named both programs in his will — a gesture of gratitude for a career that has shaped his life as profoundly as he has shaped the lives of countless older adults.
"These programs have been really important to me, enriching my life," Manseau said, explaining his decision. "It makes me feel good to know they will continue after I'm gone."
This semester alone, Manseau is teaching more than 200 students across four courses, including two online sections and studio classes. Over 35 years, he has touched thousands of lives through art education tailored primarily to older adults.
"This is the best," Manseau said of his SMC teaching career. "So many wonderful students, and I have such a strong connection with them. It doesn't feel like work. It feels like making art with all your friends."
Born and raised in Santa Monica, Manseau attended Santa Monica High School before enrolling at SMC and transferring to Cal State Long Beach, where he earned bachelor's and master's degrees in fine art. His artistic journey began even earlier.
"I was doodling on the wall, and my mom said, 'Freddie, here's a piece of paper and pencil,'" Manseau recalled. "My parents were very supportive. I'm very grateful they never pressured me to be an attorney or businessman."
That early encouragement led to a teaching career that began in 1989, when Manseau was drawn to working with older adults in the Emeritus Program, which offers free, noncredit courses to seniors.
"Now that I am an older adult, I can relate even more than when I first began as a professor in 1990 with Emeritus, but even back then, I always felt so comforted, and enjoyed so much being around older adults," Manseau said. "I have learned from them, and still am in the way of life lessons, that only an older adult can know."
His connection to Santa Monica permeates his teaching. Living and working in the same city has strengthened his ties to students, many of whom are neighbors. Local landmarks like the Santa Monica Pier and Palisades Park frequently appear in classroom exercises.
"Living and teaching in the same city has made my connections to the local community even stronger," Manseau said. "We can connect strongly by creating art in a local context by drawing upon familiar architecture and landmark locations."
Despite his students' worldly experiences — one logs in weekly from Paris, another recently joined class via Zoom from Vienna — Manseau has never felt the pull to travel.
"I've just never had the wanderlust. I've always been in Santa Monica, and I'm still in Santa Monica," he said.
Instead, Manseau has created his own richly curated world in his mother's former home, a 1923 Mediterranean Revival house where he continues to live. The residence doubles as a personal museum filled with collections that span decades: 13 pedal cars arranged as centerpieces, a 1948 Wurlitzer jukebox, vintage tin-plate cars and airplanes, and an Art Deco traffic signal.
A close friend and longtime student created a hand-calligraphed sign for one display: "Musée Manseau."
Manseau drives a 1957 Nash Metropolitan named Hazel — "like a life-sized pedal car, except I don't have to pedal it," he said — and delivers Zoom demonstrations from a one-room bungalow on the property using a state-of-the-art overhead webcam setup.
The main house overflows with his artwork. Demonstration watercolors from Emeritus classes are "measured in vertical feet," Manseau said, while his personal artistic output rises in even taller stacks throughout the home.
"I just can't stop. I have to keep painting," he said.
His legacy gift aims to ensure future students and instructors can experience the same rewarding opportunities he has enjoyed.
"My reason for doing this is so that hopefully it will help ensure for students in the future to have available to them these tremendously wonderful programs, and at the same time, continue to make available for future instructors a joyous opportunity to experience the kind of tremendously rewarding life in education that I have been graced with," Manseau said.
After 35 years, Manseau shows no signs of slowing down.
"I think you can understand why I have been around my students/friends for as long as I have," he said. "It has made my life what it is, a wonderful one, which I want to continue as long as I'm able."