![\"jaysteesmabech.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/jaysteesmabech.jpg\")
<\/span>Others need community.<\/p>\nHe painted small figures on barren gray plains, abandoned houses, ravaged trees. His grays are creamy, his whites begrimed and his blacks full of shadows. When used, bright color is a a shock value.<\/p>\n Paintings at Seattle artREsource<\/a>.<\/p>\n Steensma’s great achievement was his shaky ground. <\/p>\n Said Seattle painter Fay Jones<\/a> after his death:<\/p>\n I His paintings are small in With In William Burroughs’ Naked Lunch<\/i><\/a>, Some artists need to live by water. Others need community. There are artists who don’t care where they live… As long as they can work there. Seattle’s Jay Steensma died in 1994 of a heart attack at age 52. Although manic-depressive, he was on medication to control it for his final seven years and his […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1096","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-uncategorized","7":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1096"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1096\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1096"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1096"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1096"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"jaysteemsmacommity.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/jaysteemsmacommity.jpg\")
<\/span>There are artists who don’t care where they live…<\/p>\n![\"jaysteensmahouse.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/assets_c\/2009\/09\/jaysteensmahouse-thumb-400x320-10255.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span>As long as they can work there.<\/p>\n![\"jaysteemsmawrk.jpg\"](\"http:\/\/www.artsjournal.com\/anotherbb\/assets_c\/2009\/09\/jaysteemsmawrk-thumb-400x291-10258.jpg\")
<\/a><\/span>Seattle’s Jay Steensma died in 1994 of a heart attack at age 52. Although manic-depressive, he was on medication to control it for his final seven years and his career blossomed, if such a career can blossom. Part of his problem was volume, volume, volume. If we are lucky, some curator is going to dig through his crazy, slapdash excess to find a stellar core of solitude and weather. <\/p>\n
\nIn the 1960s, he studied with Morris Graves<\/a>,
\nwhose influence is detectable in his paintings of streaky birds and
\nfish on brown paper bags, most of which serve to throw Graves’ virtues
\nin high relief.<\/p>\n
\nhave a little painting of his I’d give my right arm to have done. It
\nprobably took him three minutes: three silhouettes in a doorway, and
\nthat’s it. The space is uncanny. He was eloquent about art, what art
\nis, being an artist.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
\nformat, muted in color. Beneath their delicacy is an awkward vitality.
\nInstead of moments of enlightenment, however, he specialized in moments
\nof acute and resounding alienation.
\nHe was an artist brave enough to persist in spite of a daunting
\ndisability. Along with being immensely afflicted, he was immensely
\ngifted. <\/p>\n
\na few strokes, he could render a landscape that reverberates with
\nvisual meaning, a mood stated with the barest of means.
\nWhen he painted cities, he painted them soiled. From the white of
\nceiling lights pouring out of a window are figures huddled in an
\napartment. The building is smudged and stale, and the figures inside
\nthe lighted room are the kind of people who wear their hats indoors,
\nnever relaxing.<\/p>\n
\nthe famous first line begins, “I can feel the heat closing in . . .”
\nIt could serve as an emblem for Steensma’s work. In his paintings,
\ndread is always closing in, and something – a house, a hand, a streak
\nof bird feathers, a small figure painting in a painting of a wide plain
\n– is always fighting back.
A good selection of his work here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"