Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Tette.
Steven, can you briefly walk us through your story – how you started and how you got to where you are today.
I was born in Pontiac, Michigan, in the middle of the rust belt, before the decay. I spent the first sixteen years of my life between the two towns, Pontiac and Grand Rapids. Most of my early life, I lived in Pontiac, which was an automotive town, and part of the Motor City industrial complex. During this time, crack ruled the streets, and I was in the middle of the drug epidemic. My brother and sister were addicts, and I was selling them. Grand Rapids is a Western Michigan town with little ties to automobile manufacturing, and home to my paternal family. Unlike most of my friends, I had a place to escape to when the times got too tough.
My passion for art-making came even before my first memories. I really can’t call it a passion. Art was a part of me. However, my home circumstances and community environment provided no real outlets for my talents. So, at the age of seventeen, I quit school and enlisted in the Army. The majority of my adult life was spent in the military. So, l have seen the horrors and inhumanity of many wars close up. After leaving the service, I dedicated myself to finishing my education, earning an Associates, Bachelor’s, and Master’s degrees. In terms of my artistic career, because of my long military service, I have been playing catch up with my artistic peers. However, opportunities have favored me and have exhibited all over the world. But, this is not what drives me. I am driven by my love of art and making. The creative Gods have placed in me the need to express myself in visual ways.
Great, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
I have lost many friends in my early life along the way, many to prison, and many to death. My mother was a college-educated woman. However, she was a single mother of nine. She did not receive any child support for any of her children, so I knew childhood hunger well. Throughout my youth, school lunch was my first meal of the day. Violence was my defense as a boy. I could fight. At the age of 16, my best friend died and I found myself kicked out of school. Pontiac, district, was sent to live with my paternal grandmother and aunt in Grand Rapids. Speaking of fighting, the fighting family, the Mayweathers and Marvin Sapp were good friends in Grand Rapids. Soon after, I dropped out of school and joined the army. The army was full of horrors. I was on the front lines of the Gulf War. Soon after that, I was in the chaos of Somalia. I was clinically diagnosed with PTSD, something I continue to struggle with.
We’d love to hear more about your art.
I’m an artist. I don’t employ anyone but myself. I am known for my oil painting. Above all, a Realist. No, an American Realist. To be more precise, an African-American Realist. Realism serves as the foundation for my art, whether it is in two or three dimensions. Most of my work could be categorized as portraiture, but I do not limit myself to any specific genre of art. I will use a wide range of artistic media such as painting, drawing, even chulk, and a wide range of subjects, people, places and things, to achieve my goals. Some of my artistic influences are Henry O Tanner, Jan Van Eyck, Augusta Savage, Gustave Courbet, Charles White, John Singer Sargent, and the great unknown artist Western Africa. Some of my contemporary influences are Kehinde Wiley, Kerry James Marshall, Bo Bartlett, and Amy Sherald. The latter two, I’ve been lucky enough to know personally.
I work in a conservative manner. I use oil paint and other materials in the same way they have been used for hundreds of years. However, my work reflects a contemporary African-American experience. An experience that is unique to me but shared with so many more. To see my work, one just might believe that the product of my labor is most important to me. This is far from true. It is the process in which I find my peace. I have been chosen twice by the Georgia Council for the Arts to be one of the artists to represent the Art of Georgia.
Do you look back particularly fondly on any memories from childhood?
One of my favorite childhood memories is traveling “Down South.” The first time is leaving the city and getting out into the country. My mama, nine kids and a dog in an old station wagon on the highway. Even though I remember how “speech about the South,” my mama gave scared me, I found the openness soothing. I believe that’s why I am here now.
Contact Info:
- Website: steventette.com
- Email: steven.tette@gmail.com
- Instagram: artist_steven_tette
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