Stephen finds joy in the simple things
Blowing bubbles, flying a kite, sitting around a campfire with friends roasting marshmallows, walking in the rain, sliding down a hill, riding a bike, fishing by a stream, reading a book with your back against a tree, developing a fascination for dragons or super heroes flying into space. These are just some of the childhood memories Philip Stephen found when he decided to do a series of paintings to rekindle the spirit of his inner child.
After years of working with troubled teens, Stephen wanted to create an uplifting series of paintings to remind people how simple it is to capture the joy of life without alcohol or drugs.
“I wanted to create a show with an uplifting positive focus, something that has light and focus. I think there is so much to be distressed about in the world today that it can be very easy to think that™s all there is sometimes. I think my art is a reminder that happiness can be a very simple thing, Stephen says. “I like to think we can take a part of our childhood with us and it is part of us all our lives long.
His lively, colourful show featuring children frolicking in pursuits such as butterfly catching, or floating on a lake in an inner tube and the activities mentioned above, opened at the Station House Gallery Thursday evening.
On Friday and Monday two groups of school children were given a guided tour of the show by the artist before he headed back to his studio in Vancouver. The lakecity show is special to Stephen because he grew up in Williams Lake and still has family here. He says he has doodled and dabbled in art since early childhood but has only recently embarked on a full-time career in art.
He graduated from Columneetza in 1995, but says he went back in 1996 to improve his grade point average so that he could get into university. While in high school he worked with the Art Society and participated in activities at the NOOPA Youth Centre. After high school he became a volunteer with NOOPA and then a paid youth worker.
He took first year English and psychology courses at the University College of the Cariboo (now Thompson Rivers University) and then in 1999 headed off to the University of Victoria™s visual arts program. But after a year he found his illustrative work was in conflict with the art faculty™s push for more abstract conceptual work from the students.
So Stephen switched into the Child and Youth Care program, a small program with about 50 students in the social work discipline. In the summers during university, he worked at youth camps and with troubled youth
After graduating from UVic in 2002, having worked through summers and at school he realized he was missing his family so he took a year off to reconnect with family and friends in B.C. and Alberta and to see the rest of Canada.
After that he settled into a job as a youth worker with a school in West Vancouver for three and a half years. It was the first time he had worked with troubled youth from wealthy families, many of whom were involved with marijuana, alcohol and harder drugs. He found the needs of those youth to be much the same as the troubled youth he had worked with in Victoria and even some he had worked with in a Victoria prison.
“I was scared at first, he says of his prison work. “Then I realized they were not really different from other kids who are wanting to be cared for and loved, be recognized for who they are and trying to fit in. Teenagers everywhere are struggling with that.
He thought that because the students in West Vancouver came from wealthy families they would have somehow have things figured out but they were often latchkey kids whose fathers were off working around the world somewhere and mothers were involved in their own lives. “Without a secure foundation kids are always testing to see how far they can push things, Stephen says.
He had the students he worked with express themselves in writing and in art to help them find their own direction in life and to have faith in their ability to achieve their dreams. “Art is just such an outlet for what is going on under the surface.
But after a few years working with youth, Stephen realized he wasn™t following his own dreams to become a professional artist. Two years ago he quit teaching to devote all his time to art. He paints in acrylics and also does some printmaking, graphic design work and photography which is on display in the upper gallery along with some of his early work from high school.
That first summer off he joined the Artists Circle in Stanley Park. Last July he rented a studio in East Vancouver and participated in the East Side Cultural Craw last November. After running out of most of his savings in his first year of getting established as an independent artist, he sold five paintings, at the show along with a few photographs and some art cards and prints. “It was quite encouraging to interact with people.
Three years ago he had also joined an artists cooperative in Vancouver that runs the Arts OFF Main Gallery where his work can also be seen. Stephen is also working on illustrating a book he has written for children called the Blue Badger, about a boy who wakes up to find he has become an ogre for a day.
Gaeil Farrar
8 April 2008
http://www.bclocalnews.com/bc_cariboo/williamslaketribune/community/17375119.html
Philip Stephen has worked with troubled teens for many years and, after pursuing his own dreams a couple of years ago to become a full time artist, he wanted his first show to be uplifting to demonstrate that kids can find happiness in the simple things in life, like walking in the rain.
