About Steve Garst

How did I get to this place in my life? Why did I become an artist when veterinarians make a lot more money? Well, as my good friend Guy Golemon explains it “talent doesn’t care who it jumps on!” My life has been, and continues to be, influenced and inspired by water. I’ve always embraced and kept in touch with my surroundings. Growing up along the banks of Mobile Bay and spending a good portion of my childhood in Bayou La Batre and Coden, it’s easy to understand my water influences.

As a child I loved looking at magazines with all the great illustrations. Artists were telling the stories with their paintings. I remember telling my parents when I was 12, this is what I’m going to do. I’m going to make up stories in my paintings. It wasn’t until I was a junior in high school that I actually got to take art classes. I was in the band and didn’t have time for art as well. During the winter of my junior year I was in a bad car wreck that ended my music career so our high school art teacher Bobby Carr found room for me in one of his art classes. I guess you could say, “I got into art by accident.”

After high school off I went to Sarasota, Florida, to attend Ringling School of Art. What a magical time that was. Well-known professional artists who all had achieved a degree of notoriety in their careers instructed us. I was at last in my element and made every minute count. Time passed much too quickly but after Ringling I was off to conquer the world with a heightened sense of creativity, pen, pencil, and brush.

I landed a job with a large furniture store chain in West Palm Beach and earned the title “Illustrator.” We were responsible for the advertising of seven stores from Vero Beach to Boca Raton. Now I know drawing furniture doesn’t sound sexy but it taught me the discipline of drawing with a brush and allowed me the creativity to express myself through wash drawings—a discipline I use in a lot of my work today. After a few years in South Florida I was off to discover new venues and to challenge myself as an Illustrator all the while continuing to produce my “personal paintings.”

There were times when I was working on something creative and my friends couldn’t understand why I wouldn’t go places with them. They just couldn’t understand how these paintings had to come out of me. I’m not sure I understand, but I embrace it. Anyway, years slide by and I’ve worked here and there and freelanced and have been commissioned by many folks, but I still get the greatest pleasure from the “personal paintings.”

I have to say I’ve been very fortunate in my art career. I guess you could even say lucky. I set goals when I was younger and have worked hard to achieve them with my art. My work has appeared in magazines such as Saturday Evening Post, People, Golf Digest, Bass Master, Southern Outdoors, Buck Master, and Saltwater Fisherman. I was commissioned by the Montgomery Zoo to create a painting that was made into limited edition prints, signed/numbered, and sold to raise money to build a natural habitat for the Golden Eagles. The National Fisheries Society commissioned a painting for their annual conference in New York. It now hangs in their national headquarters. In 1990 I won the Alabama Migratory Waterfowl Stamp competition. I guess by now you can see a pattern developing. Yes I do enjoy painting wildlife and I try to include wildlife in other aspects of my art as well. I also enjoy drawing and painting people. A few years back I was asked to do a pencil drawing for the signature page of Colin Powell’s book My American Journey. When I finished the drawing I decided it would be more valuable if signed by him. I would hang on to it for a while, and then sell it. Cha Ching! So I sent it to him for his signature and he liked it so much he decided to keep it. Well, who’s going to tell Colin Powell he can’t have it? Not me! He did send me a nice check so we’re square.

In my real life I’ve done hundreds of illustrations and book covers as the Senior Illustrator and Art Director for Air University Press. I’ve been lucky enough to make my living as an artist. I am thankful for what I’ve been able to accomplish through art. I love everything about being creative because it lets you get away with a lot. “Oh, it’s ok, he’s one of those creative people.” A few years back I was invited to an Art Guild meeting where I met a very talented and creative artist, Deborah Gibson. She was doing the program, but I couldn’t tell you what it was about. I couldn’t take my eyes off her. Well, September 2004, just two days after hurricane Ivan, we were married on the beach in Panama City Beach, Florida. How lucky can one man be? Life is good.