Mark Stevenson

My parents named me Mark Twain, so you can expect me to have been in some trouble.

I wanted to make art ever since I was in high school, in Lincoln, Illinois. Central Illinois was a long way from any cultural center. Most thinking there seemed to have stopped in the Joseph McCarthy era. The landscape was of CORN. Before it was up, because of the flatness, you could see a long way, but after it was up see not far at all, until canyons began to appear among the rows in the fall.

My father and mother, for making a living, were a librarian and the English professor at the college level. They believed in these roles, and were very decent, fun loving and humorous, and took care of us, myself and three siblings. They were fair and pleasant and honest to have as parents. Fair to the world, as much as they could be. My father is still very much alive, and he continues to contribute to the social causes. I was lucky in this regard. I remember this print of Georges Roualt's The Old King hanging in the house. My father must have identified with this, in the evenings, when the hubbub had quieted: ruffled with dignity. This would be echoed later in my piece The Old Rooster.

Man Walking II
by Giacometti, 1960

Cycladian Sculpture
2500-1100 B.C.

I was also privileged to work in New York for six months. There is even more of the world's best art in New York than Chicago, because there are about five great art museums, and they've been at it longer. Stolen from their place of origin or not, there were life-sized Greek marbles, and those wondrous cycladian forms, and more Egyptian hard stone. It was the Museum of Modern Art that enthralled me the most. I discovered the steel sculpture of David Smith.

Outside, in the streets, the protests were mounting. I was working with 5 year olds. The FBI came around to talk about all the communications going back and forth between the draft board and me. I put a lot of energy into convincing them I really couldn't and wouldn't go fight in Vietnam, or even help it to be done. Their response was to call me up. The support of my family, a good committed lawyer, and stupid paperwork mistakes by the draft board kept me out of prison. I was lucky again. I saw in person people like Dr. Spock ( his baby book was second in sales only to the Bible, really, and of course my parents had a copy of it when they had us). He and other elders burned draft cards with us. I continue to put what energy I can into social causes, believing, as Alice Walker says, that it is like paying rent for this amazing place we lead our lives.

Bird God over Mountains
sculpted at Kelly Butte Lookout
Bronze, 1978

Other important influences include travel to Central and South America. Incan ruins, whole towns sculpted so beautifully of and into the native stone, convinced me irrevocably of the value of artists in human affairs. Then I was a night janitor in the exhibit of ancient Egyptian art from the tomb of Tutankhaman, exposed to those amazing animist art objects five nights a week for four months. I worked for four seasons as a fire lookout, high above the Oregon desert and then north of Mt. Rainier, and this is where I began my landscape-based works, some of which you can see in the Portfolio. I also made woodcuts on those mountain top perches.

Port Townsend is where I met Sarah Ohman, while proposing my Turtle Island piece to the Parks board. That turtle has been good to us. Now she and I share this home and workshop with her two children, Adin and Ruby.