Biography
About Steve Firkins
I was born in 1954 during the great American baby boom. I grew up in Blue Earth, Minnesota, on the gently rolling plains in the south central part of the state. I was deeply affected by the vast expanse of ever changing earth and sky.
During the 1960’s America was racing to the moon. The world began to see the Earth from the new perspective. In high school I became interested in art and started photographing nature and the landscapes of the “Blue Earth“ planet.
In college I studied art, philosophy, politics, and religion, choosing an artistic identity as the main source of who I was because it included all the other identities. I graduated from Luther College in Decorah, Iowa in 1978 with a degree in art and art education.
In 1978, I moved to the Mississippi River Valley in the Winona, Minnesota area. It was then that I first began using the word Curvism to describe my art and philosophy about art.
Self Portrait as a Young Wild Man 1991
I was married in 1980. In 1983 I began graduate school at Winona State University and received a Masters Degree in counseling in 1987.
In 1987, my family and I moved to Black River Falls, Wisconsin, which is located in a mix of dairy lands and hilly pine and hardwood forests. In 1992, I built an art studio addition onto my house and used Mondays and weekends for making art. From 1987 to 2016 I worked as a mental heath therapist and alcohol/drug counselor to earn a living. I moved to St. Peter Minnesota in 2018 and now work full time on my art and writing in my “retirement years”.