Stephen Metzger

I was born in Duluth Minnesota to parents who met at the Kansas City Art Institute. My Mother
was there on a scholarship in sculpture and my Dad was studying commercial art on the GI bill.
I grew up with art, began playing upright bass at the age of 10, and started painting the summer
after my sophomore year in High School.

I worked as a musician after attending Fullerton College ( then it was Fullerton Junior College),
and later while I attended Cal State Fullerton, studying art. After graduating with an MFA in
1986, I began teaching and working as an artist / musician/ teacher.
I have been fortunate to have lived my life as an artist involved in music, sculpture, drawing,
printmaking, painting and occasional excursions into other art forms. Primarily, I consider myself
to be a musician-painter-explorer who could become more of a sculptor if the opportunity
presents itself again. I have been fortunate to have completed four public sculptures.
After a lengthy interest in non-objective "abstract" art, I began simply doing paintings of things
that interested me. I take a lot of digital photos, look through them, and select the images I
paint.

At first, I painted things around me, usually abandoned buildings or landscapes, then traditional
still-life, cars, and the open road.
The floral paintings began a few years ago. I like the colors, and the abstract qualities of the
forms. I prefer to paint them, oversized, in full bloom, with no bugs, or any intentional symbolic
associations. I suppose that experimentation and formalism is still the goal in this work.
To me, the picture doesn't matter as much as the process of painting it. Exhibiting and selling
doesn't interest me much either. If I could, I would just spend my days painting and writing
music. I would just store my work for someone else to decide what to do with it someday. I
suppose I have an anti-career attitude, and a distrust of the conventional notion of "success" .
I enjoy going to galleries and art museums, but don't put too much energy into being accepted
by the "art world" or the "music industry " . I believe it is a mistake to assume that "success" is
about those concerns.

My advice to any artist or musician, who is interested in what I think, would be to follow your
own path and don't rely on the acceptance of others. Keep the energy and the love that you had
the first time you made a painting or wrote a song. Creativity and freedom of expression is there
for anyone willing to try. The blank canvas is the last frontier and music is just a sound in the air.
I currently live with my wife, Jamie, in Fullerton, Ca. and try to paint everyday.