I'm Steven,

First born in Freeborn County, Minnesota, distinguished me on January 1,1949. My dad got a hand painted silk tie. 

My formative years were spent in Minnesota, Iowa, and the Dakotas, until graduation from high school in 1967. Six letters in my first name, seven in my last. I received a scholarship to the San Francisco Art Institute, where Bruce Nauman taught me to think visually. Later I discovered he influenced me through phenomenology. Nauman was phenomenal. 

The culture of art within a culture became the focus for my master's degree. I became an art educator. Belief systems inspired me to design curricula around visual thinking, which I taught during the next 35 years, seven of those in Hong Kong. 

During my tenure in Hong Kong, I was awarded a fellowship to Yale Divinity School to study Chinese and Christian symbols. Returning to Hong Kong I founded an organization of Chinese Christian artists. We organized the first exhibit of Christian artists at the Hong Kong Art Centre, combined with a commemoration of the Tiananmen Square Massacre. I returned to the States after we developed a program to bring resources into Hong Kong’s Vietnamese refugee camps, culminating in an exhibit and a concert. 

Teaching taught me many things. I learned that my teaching residencies in Iowa, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Maryland and Hong Kong had informed my visual thinking. As an artist who took up residence with the Chippewa or Chinese, I’ve learned more than I taught. Bruce Nauman taught me that. And now I find myself in New Mexico, where he lives. My wife and I might go to visit him. I could wear my dad’s hand painted silk tie.

My art business has been designated as a "Trusted Art Seller" with The Art Storefronts Organization, which means you can shop with confidence, and know that I stand behind the quality and value of my products.