About: Steve Fick

Artistic Statement
"Painting is a form of active meditation. It is an act of surrender and obedience. It is a way to break out of my habitual patterns of thinking so that I can become a channel for something deeper. To begin a painting, I first need to experience a clear and honest inner pull towards a subject. When that pull is strong enough, I know there will be enough energy to carry the project through to completion. It is like falling in love with something that I cannot yet see. From beginning to end, I absolutely have to be in love with what I am doing. Otherwise, the necessary hours of concentration and effort would be torturous.

I never know in advance exactly where I am going or how I will get there. Painting is a thousand small acts of obedience. Each stroke of paint should have an honest impulse behind it. Over and over, I try to quiet my mind and my heart and listen carefully to the next impulse as it arises. After all these years of painting, I have an unshakable conviction that without this sense of obedience, the painting will fail. Step by small step, if I act from a sense of inner calling, using the energy of love, there is an undeniable inner intelligence, seemingly beyond me, that manifests itself. I make the small steps; it pulls the big picture together. And usually in the big picture there are things revealed that I never could have anticipated or done by conscious design. In the end, I am as surprised and delighted as anyone else might be. It is as if the more I step out of the way, the better the painting is."

Biography Born and raised in Colorado, Steve worked with the Peace Crops in Thailand before moving to British Columbia to get his Masters Degree. Today, Steve lives in Ottawa where he's worked as the cartographer for Canadian Geographic for over 20 years. He continues to balance his time between work, painting, teaching and community work.

About
Steve Fick: Artistic Statement

Daily Journal
Day 1: St John’s & Salmonier Nature Park
Day 2: Change Islands & Tilting
Day 3: L’Anse aux Meadows & Raleigh
Day 4: Cape Charles & Battle Harbour, Labrador Coast
Day 5: Gros Morne National Park
Day 6: Grand Codroy Valley
Day 7: White Bear Bay & Ramea
Day 8: Conne River & Francois
Day 9: St.-Pierre, France
Day 10: Return to St. John’s

Related Stories
Ghost coast
Torngat Mountains

Resources
www.fick.ca
www.danielpayne.ca
Adventure Canada
Newfoundland & Labrador