A Lifelong Passion for Creating
Most people spend several years of their lives devoting themselves to creating art.
And then there are those exceptional people who have devoted their entire lives to creating…from painting to sculpture to collage to ceramics. Everything they do is the result of a mind filled with imaginative ideas.
Let me give you an example of someone like this who happens to be a family member. His name is Steve Humphrey and he’s married to my sister Charlotte, who is an exceptionally talented artist as well.
Before they married Steve was a very successful ceramicist and sold his mugs, vases and plates in Texas where he went to college.
Many years later they opened a company called 47 Productions based in Seattle and Steve created beautiful designs out of hand-forged steel. Charlotte did the business side. Their company was a huge success and they had commissions from well-known stores to create stairs and tables and chairs and lamps and all sorts of other furniture. Nordstoms and Marios in Seattle are just two examples of where their work was prominently displayed.
A side note…I moved to Seattle after my divorce in 1997 from New Orleans to be close to them. That’s how I chose to go there and make a new life with my kids.
After many years they decided to move across the country to Florida to enjoy the sunny weather. At that time there was no room to bring the enormous amount of steel and welding materials so they left that behind.
What came next was exquisitely detailed collage pieces. Steve would go to second- hand stores and buy books and magazines for just a few dollars and take them home and cut out different things that were attractive to him.
Now this was a very laborious process. Half of their living room became his studio with papers filed everywhere. He cut intricate images out with an Xacto knife and spent hours deciding how to configure them on an 8x10” piece of paper. Layer upon layer, he would build very imaginative images.
On one of my visits there I asked him to please show me his technique because it looked like fun. I love detail and intricate designs. I realized very quickly that this technique was much harder than I thought it was going to be.
Here’s what I came up with…
Recently, I asked him if he was still doing his collage pieces and he said he had moved on to carving wood, which he has a lot of in his garage. I can hardly wait to see what he comes out with.
In two months he turns 80 years old and he is still as passionate about creating now as he has been for the past 60 years that I have known him. His dedication to his art has been so inspiring to me. He just keeps on getting ideas and can’t wait to create something new.
And let me just say that he is a master at designing a garden, too. And he’s also super creative in his cooking skills. So, if you ever think you’re at the end of creative expression, I hope you have the strength to pivot and put those creative ideas into another place.
I hope this has been as inspiring to you as he has been to me. Just keep on creating and coming up with a way to express yourself in the world no matter what material or medium it is.
* Click HERE to learn about the Art with Adele Academy.
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