BIOGRAPHY OF: STEVE
LARSON, ARTIST/PAINTER/PRINTMAKER
 For over thirty years Mr. Larson has been creating original
watercolor and oil-paintings from small (7"x 11") to murals over forty
feet in length utilizing a full-range of subject matter; such as: LANDSCAPES:
sunsets, sunrises, mountains, trains in landscapes, people in landscapes, farm
scenes, birds in landscapes, NUDES in landscapes, water in landscapes,
city-scenes...also FLORAL PAINTINGS: roses, water-lilies, peonies,
day-lilies, wild-flowers, gladiolas, orchids, daffodils, and many more painted
indoors and outside...also PORTRAITS: oil or watercolor paint, just
the head
or full body, inside or outside, clothed or naturalist, any size...also STILL-LIFE:
oil or watercolor paint, please see samples...also DECORATIVE PAINTING:
such as stenciling (stencils are custom made by artist) and decorative murals
which are painted either directly on the wall or on substrates attached later to
walls; also found in this section is "decorative tile"-a new skill
developed since moving to the South West. Only a small sampling of this body of work (Mr. Larson has created
approx. 3,000 paintings between teaching art-classes and renovating houses)
could be presented in these web-pages but if you are searching for an artist to
create a SITE- SPECIFIC- MURAL or any other commissioned two-dimensional
painting, just click-on a thumbnail and take a look at the bigger picture!
Reproductions are available as Gicle e
Prints on Canvas or Watercolor Paper.
Born in Chicago, IL. and reared in South Bend, IN. Mr. Larson
majored in Fine Arts at Indiana University, Bloomington, IN. Serving as his own
sales agent for three decades has required dealings with corporate and private
clients and Interior Designers representing those clients which has occasionally
led to television, radio and newspaper interviews. Additionally, the artist has
taught painting for Art Centers, Museums and Universities and Nature Centers in
the Mid-West while exhibiting Nationally in a multitude of Juried Competitions
where many top awards were won repeatedly.
In 1996 Mr. Larson and his wife moved from northern IN. to the
mountains of rural south-central Colorado into a wind/solar powered Swedish
Cordwood/Post & Beam style log house and pole-barn Studio designed and
constructed primarily by the artist. The location, though inspiring, proved to
be too remote...we couldn't get a regular phone installed and Cellular didn't
work well in the mountains. Consequently, in 1999 we purchased a 105 yr.
Old commercial building in Pueblo CO. (5,000 ft. lower in altitude) and I began
renovation for what I anticipated would be my first "bricks & mortar" gallery as
Painted
Horse Gallery and Studio downstairs with an apartment/residence upstairs. Less
than a year later, the combined cost of renovations and surgery for a hernia expenses
required putting my artwork away and becoming the only distributor in Colorado
for a national children's book publisher. The space I'd renovated for gallery and studio
quickly filled floor to ceiling with children's books and I was soon driving 5,000 a
month delivering book-fairs to Colorado schools. Less than a year later the publisher I
had been working for went bankrupt. Meanwhile, the phone
company (for our mountain location) was bought-out for the fourth time and they installed a
phone which
enabled us to put the commercial building on the market. After five contracts
defaulted which caused us the frustration of moving in and out of the commercial building four
times we found a buyer in Feb., 2003 and in Mar. and April I moved our possessions back into the mountains
near Westcliffe, CO.
In June I resumed work in my mountain studio (unfinished with a dirt floor) on a 3ft. x 4ft. oil-paint portrait of a
Dentist & his wife composed of a group of snap-shots they took traveling
through France & Europe (the painting was completed July 4th). Click on the image below-left to see
full-page and more about
this painting.
I'd like to encourage more people to send me photos of themselves traveling
for a new category of portraiture I'll call: "ROMANTIC REALISM TRAVEL
PORTRAITURE"! Dig through your old photos and imagine the
potential!
For more specific information: Awards, Exhibits, TV & Radio appearances, see First Page of Resume:
ABOUT US
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Photograph of Artist, Steve Larson standing in front of
a six ft. x 3.5 ft. oil-painting of "Thirteen Cows standing in a
River" which is part of a larger Private Collection purchased
over a period of 25 years, now in Portland,
Oregon. |
While recovering 6 months in 2000 from
strangulated hernia surgery in the Pueblo commercial building, I purchased an
old computer at a garage sale and taught myself how to use it while I created this website. Once we'd sold the
commercial building and moved back to the mountain property we realized we
needed a slightly larger off-the-grid power system to use our computers, so I purchased a larger older
style H40 wind generator on sale from the internet. After researching wind
towers online and finding nothing practical or affordable for our 9,400 ft.
altitude I decided to design my own. While solving the
problem of raising and lowering a small wind tower for inevitable maintenance
(such as burned-out bearings) by myself
in our remote location, I invented a totally new design with a guidance system
for the tower and also the world's only "side-of-building" small wind tower
design. I was so happy with the results that I patented the design and created
an LLC to manufacture and sell towers to other people off the grid.
Two years after creating the LLC and Hinged-Guided Wind Towers website
responding to an average of 3 to 5 inquiries per week without being paid for a single tower
sale; I realized despite the general lack of necessity for high wind towers
(above 40 feet) in the mountains. People believed there was this mystical
constant gulf-stream of wind at 80 ft. to 100 ft. so they wanted high
towers anyway. However, I wasn't qualified to install higher towers. So, I went to school out of state in OK during the summer of 2008
and got certified as an NCCCO hydraulic crane operator. Unfortunately people
still didn't "pay" for my wind towers so I finally closed the website and
dissolved the LLC this Feb. 2010. Sales of my artwork had also been
dwindled as the economy sank into recession so I began seeking
employment on large wind power sites wherever I can as a crane operator. Two
days after I returned home from a month on a large wind farm in TX my wife fell
and shattered the wrist of her dominant hand into 21 pieces. With our house in
the CO wilderness and no health insurance I had to stay home to help her recover
and drive her to work everyday for three months so she wouldn't lose her job.
When I began searching for employment again the housing crash and economic
recession that followed had decimated the construction industry. Although I'd
found a short-term crane operator job on the Gulf of Mexico at the beginning of
2009 I was still unemployed by May and we had to file for Chapter 7 on my
birthday. Another short-term of employment followed on another large wind farm
but since the job market advantage was clearly with employers the
"qualifications" for employment changed from 1 to 2 years as an operator to 3 to
5 years and now included a CDL (which I didn't have). With no credit anymore
after the bankruptcy, my ability to travel over 1,200 miles to take a job and
pay for a campsite for a week to ten days before getting my first paycheck was
no longer possible.
Currently, March 2010, I am seeking funding to pay for school for a CDL so that
I can find employment again.
I will be sixty this May and despite claims of "no age discrimination" from
"human resource" departments those of us in this age bracket know otherwise.
Considering the general lack of humanity, conscience and integrity in the labor
market, I have put my faith in myself and the skills that I've spent the last 38
years developing to bring esthetically pleasing artwork into a world that is too
focused on everything ugly, greedy and unkind that people do. On this website I
will soon be introducing new artwork that is focused on combining functionality
with beauty and am hopeful with the addition of these new categories and products that my artwork and teaching orders
will soon increase.
Contracts for "Design of
Artwork" or commissioned Artwork will be provided when
arrangements are made with the artist for an "advance fee" to be
paid for sketches etc.
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