The artistry all around him in New Mexico led to an interest in metal work. Steve found himself taking courses in jewelry fabrication and metal casting at the University of New Mexico, Taos. Learning these new artistic skills, and falling in love with the medium, inspired him to create his own on-site foundry. Steve now casts his smaller bronze pieces at his home studio. For his larger sculptures, he collaborates with Rusty Mesa Foundry in Santa Fe.
These large sculptures begin as designs built up in clay. From the final clay image a mold is made. The mold is filled with wax and, using this lost wax method, a bronze sculpture is then cast. In the summer, he can get in one or two days of artistry per week, in between cutting firewood or working on building projects around his property. It is the winter when his creativity comes into its own as he is able to spend the better part of each week on his sculptures.
Steve gets inspiration for a lot of art projects from dreams. He originally became interested in dreams after seeing Alfred Hitchcock’s movie “Spellbound” in the 1960s. Steve’s well-known sculpture, The Great Mother, came to him in a dream as did other works more recently finished. Dreams have always been a big part of his and his wife’s life and part of their spiritual path. In the 1990s, the couple published a magazine on dreams which was internationally distributed—before the days of the internet. Because dreams have been so important in his life, he pays attention to them and continues to receive rewarding ideas for art from this unusual, elementary, spiritual, and inspiring source.
