Steve Garner’s third grade teacher Mrs. Smith would always compliment his classroom art projects. “If someone says positive things, it sticks with you. I never forgot her.”
Garner’s memory of Mrs. Smith lives on in the tens of thousands of students he taught during his tenure as an art teacher in Greenville and Chicago where without a shadow of a doubt, his old students share same fond memories of him encouraging them. “I always looked forward to art period,” he adds.
Whatever Mrs. Smith said to Garner must’ve jump started his 40+ year art career which produced memorable styles of art such as his floating trout which started from a project at the lake. “I wanted people to come in from the water and see all these fish floating in my yard. My family thought it looked to gaudy so I started changing this and that and coming up with new ideas. I got hooked on (creating the fish) and people wanted to buy them.”
In Garner’s previous life as an art teacher at J.L. Mann High School, he would have a million and one projects going on at the same time. He says the same busy-ness of his prior profession is sneaking into his new life as a retiree. The constant juggling of projects is common for a creative mind, such as Garner’s. He finds excitement in artistic experimentation such as painting on raw canvas. “It just occurred to me to use pure cotton fabric and let the paint soak in that.”
Have you met Garner’s greatest creation to date, El Brewster? The rooster with a drinking problem. Garner’s creativity reached new heights when he challenged himself to create a rooster that people would want to buy. “There was this guy who painted a rooster and sold it for $2,000. I told my neighbor I was going to do a rooster. You just wait until you see MY rooster.” The end result was a rooster made of cut up beer cans.
“I’m supposed to be retired, but all of a sudden I’m doing these fish and these roosters and I’m not retired at all. I like it all. It’s a good thing.”
Before being retired, before being a teacher and before he was known for his art in South Carolina… Garner was a stay at home dad with three degrees from the University of North Dakota. He says North Dakota was great because it didn’t offer too many outside distractions. “Socially it was good. It was picked by Playboy Magazine as the Number 2 Social campus when I attended.” Garner was originally from rural North Dakota and graduated from high school with 47 others. College offered him a whole new world of art and an introduction to his wife.
“I was a Mr. Mom in St. Louis and in Greenville. I started taking graphic arts classes at Greenville Tech and it was enough to get me going.” While his wife worked for Greenville radiology, Garner began volunteering with J.L. Mann’s PTSA where he helped with fundraising.
In 1995, then Principal, Fred Crawford asked him to step in and teach Art I which eventually led to a full-time position and 17 years of employment at J.L. Mann. “I never planned on staying. It wasn’t in my grand plan, but I got involved with the job and invested in the kids and the program. Talk about time flying by.
(Written by Ashley Brown of the Greenville Art Cellar.)
(Image credit: Greenville Art Cellar.)