Steve Parsons ...  fine artist

 

December 28, 2009 12:25 am  •  Ashley Franscell - Daily Herald

 

 

‘Art is like eating a big elephant,” said Steve Parsons. “You just have to take one bite at a time.”

 

Parsons, who teaches art at the Eldred Senior Center in Provo, walked around the room speaking with each of his 12 art students. Giving them each little lectures on colors, edges and shapes, the components of a perfect painting.

 

"The edges look a little soft to me," he said, taking a paintbrush and fixing it for a student. After, he stepped back to examine his touch up. The small change makes the girl in the portrait pop out from the background.

 

"He brings it to life," said Archie Craig, whose paintings Parsons has put finishing touches on.

 

He will never let a student leave his class with a bad product, even if it means that he spends an hour making the finishing touches.

 

Every one of his students is in the class for a different reason, mostly for achieving a personal goal and fulfillment. It's what has kept them coming to the class every Friday for years. Decades, even.

 

Most of them don't want to be artists, they just want to enjoy the art. They work on pieces to give to their children and grandchildren. They paint everything from landscapes to portraits to still life.

 

Parsons, 59, who lives in Santaquin, has been teaching art classes at the center for the past 30 years.

 

"Several years ago I was going to quit, but they begged me to stay," Parsons said.

 

Parsons learned that he loved to teach while teaching as a grad student at BYU. From there he taught a few classes at the Springville Art Museum before starting at the senior center once a week for several hours.

 

The senior center "has always felt right," he said. "It fulfills my needs in sharing and giving and teaching."

 

For several years while teaching, Parsons worked as a professional artist, working in different mediums and selling his pieces in galleries. Now, the time he spends outside of his job as a X-ray technician in American Fork is spent teaching at the Eldred Center and Provo Art.

"Steve is willing to share all his knowledge," said Debbie Costello, who has been in the class for more than three years. "Just because someone can paint well doesn't mean they can teach, but Steve can do both."

 

It's hard to find someone in the group who would disagree with that statement.

 

Mary Herbert, 85, spent years trying to find a teacher she liked while living in California. They were too impatient or never gave her feedback. It was hard for her to find a class she would go back to a second time. When she moved to Provo a year ago, she found the class and hesitantly gave it a try. She's been coming each Friday ever since.

 

"This class is one of the bright spots in this place," Craig said.

 

Costello found the class more than three years ago after attending BYU as an art major, but when she started painting after a 35-year hiatus to raise her seven children, her world changed.

 

"You live life in a whole different way," she said. "You see colors and shapes in a whole new way."

 

All that she has learned from Parsons, who gives little lessons and tests to his students on color mixing and shapes -- two of the harder things for artists to learn.

 

"He inspires you to try anything," said Eleanor Hall, who has been coming to the class for 24 years.

The inspiration is all part of his teaching motto: have fun.

 

"People enjoy a class and are more creative when there is a little bit of fun," he said. "I want it to be a class where it's open and people can talk and no one is critical."

 

It's the people like Hall, Herbert and Craig who keep him laughing and smiling that have kept Parsons coming back week after week, year after year.

 

"The class has changed over the years but what hasn't changed is the people," he said. "We have really good people here."