Steve Henderson, local artist, profiled on KSPS program

DAYTON–The works of art created by local fine art painter Steve Henderson was the topic of a ten-minute segment on "Everyday Northwest" hosted by Staci Nelson, broadcast by KSPS-Spokane last May.

The award-winning artist and his wife Carolyn, an author and business partner with Steve, make their home a few miles out of Dayton where Steve paints in his farmstead studio.

The first thing viewers of the program see is Nelson with the venerable Columbia County Courthouse in the background as she introduced the story about Henderson.

"Art to me is anything that causes an emotional reaction of some sort," Henderson said. "It seems like if you play the music and if it doesn't, you know, resonate in your soul, I mean...is that art or isn't it to you? You look at a painting. Does that resonate, does it cause something to change within you?"

Henderson's path to fine arts started when a junior high art teacher saw "promise" in Steve's abilities, and urged his mother to make sure he had every opportunity to pursue art. "He needs to be working with somebody to get his talent cultivated," Henderson remembers the teacher saying to his mother.

His mother followed the teacher's advice and a visit to a local artist had the desired effect. Visiting the artist's studio, which was "packed with paintings," he said, "really encouraged me at that age."

Henderson attended Central Washington University in Ellensburg, and wanting to be an artist "I really didn't know any other option at that time but to go the academic route," he said.

He and Carolyn have been married 40 years. "I was attracted to his spirit," she said in the "Everyday Northwest" segment. "It's a gentle, confident spirit. And I think that's what comes out in his paintings."

"One of the highest compliments anyone can ever give him–and they have given it to him–is 'I feel like I'm in that painting. You took me to that painting. I'm standing there.'" Carolyn said.

"There's a lot of things he says in his paintings but the main thing he's trying to get across is truth," she said. "He's trying to find it and he's trying to get people themselves to look for it."

"The paintings," Steve said, "each of them, I believe encompass not just a visual story, but an internal story. We have a story to tell, so we paint a picture. Put that picture out there.

"The viewer comes to that story," he continued, "but they're looking at it from their experience and their background. So in a way they're taking our story and combining it with their story and creating a story of their own."

Henderson's art covers a broad spectrum: landscapes, seascapes and what he calls "The Human Experience." Subjects range from young and old, varied locales and media including oil, watercolor and charcoal, for example. He's painted the Victorian Broughton Mansion in Dayton as well as the historic courthouse. The range of locations includes waterfalls, canyons, ocean waves, towering peaks, cities and towns.

The program then focused on a few of Henderson's many works of art, pieces which seem to hold special significance for the pair.

Their grandson is the subject of Henderson's painting "Free Spirit." "What I was trying to capture in that painting is that breeze that was blowing through the fields out there that day. He has his hat on and he's kind of holding tight on to it so," Henderson explains. "That one is very much a combination between brushwork, palette knife work and my thumb."

Carolyn describes one of Steve's paintings of a woman in a flowing, gauzy covering, walking in the ocean surf late on a golden afternoon, entitled "Catching the Breeze." "It's sunset, and the light is doing that thing that it does at sunset," Carolyn says. "The water isn't blue. It's golden and it's coral and it's red and it's orange...and there's a breeze blowing. And you're walking in the surf, barefoot," she describes, describing the feelings the painting gives her.

One of Steve's personal favorite paintings is entitled "Serenity." A Native American woman is seated on a red rock outcropping, back to the viewer, gazing over a Grand Canyon landscape. It's one of his favorites "for the composition," Steve says. "The way that particular painting is set up, drawing the viewer to stand at the edge of the Grand Canyon, right along with this lady whose wrapped in the blanket, sitting there contemplating the setting sun over the Grand Canyon. That one there is primarily brushwork. Very little palette knife. There's a lot of detail in that one but there the muted colors, trying to keep the values very close in that painting."

Carolyn reviews the piece entitled "Twilight Romance." "It always makes me smile," she said. "What makes me smile the most about it is people's reactions to it. People who come in and they'll just go '(gasp) (sigh).' And everybody thinks a different story about it and some people will say 'Well, are they leaving? Is it their last dance together?' And other people are 'Is this their first dance together? And who's the fiddler? Do they even know that he's there? Or is he actually there?' It's just a really fun image because it just lets you tell the story. It is your story. The same way it is your relationship with that special person, this is your story about how that relationship goes."

"Gone Sailing" is especially mesmerizing because at first glance, the mind's eye sees sailors on a pleasure sailboat. On closer inspection, it is apparent Henderson painted with a lack of detail. "If you zoom in on it. There's actually not a lot of detail, it's suggested," he said. The subject was on the bayfront out by Port Townsend, Wash. "We're capturing being outside, under the blue sky, on the blue ocean, and the swirling paint tries to capture a bit of that feeling of these guys being totally lost in getting that boat out there and enjoying their day," he said.

Another late-day, sun-lit piece depicts a young woman in a period setting, perhaps an apartment with a steam radiator, shutters over the window and an oak book case with glass doors. She's on a sturdy oak settee, shoes lying where she kicked them off, and she's pulling her hat from her head. On the table is a Victrola phonograph.

"Ending the Day On A Good Note" is the title, Carolyn says. "I don't have to worry about what happened today, and I don't have to worry about tomorrow," she relates. "I'm home and that music on that Victrola is my music, and I am just going to rest. I'm going to do whatever is fun for me, and whatever is going to cause me to relax and I'm not going to feel guilty about it."

"Everybody talks about leaving a legacy on this planet through our life," Steve adds, "and I think that their only legacy that really lasts is that memory within somebody else's heart and mind of 'well, that person cared, that person helped me when I needed help, that person gave me an encouraging word.' My entire existence and who I am as a person, as an individual walking here, around on this planet, I find that it truly does come down to relationships, and like for us, for our case, it's family."

The segment ends with the Hendersons walking down their lane, away from the viewer, hand in hand.

Steve has two websites, one for original paintings, the other for prints: Stevehendersonfineart.com and Stevehendersoncollections.com for prints.

Visit https://www.pbs.org/video/everyday-northwest-may-2023-8ctin4/ to see the program.