Today we’d like to introduce you to Steve Barnard.
Hi Steve, so excited to have you on the platform. So before we get into questions about your work-life, maybe you can bring our readers up to speed on your story and how you got to where you are today.
I started in Jr High drawing on friends’ t-shirts for $1.50. I always loved and studied art. While in the US Air Force at Lackland AFB, I would often paint at night in the lavatory so as not to disturb my roommate. After service for nearly five years, I carried on painting and also started making life-sized sculptures using found materials.
I was featured in an art gallery and sold everything I put in. At that same time, I was showing my work for the Tacoma city METAL URGE art exhibition. I had four pieces in different galleries. The online magazine publisher Issuu featured me in a thirteen-page interview with photos in their ARTiculation monthly issue.
I continue to produce art six days a week and have recently had my work on display at the Emporia Arts Center/ Trusler Gallery group show and have been invited to do a solo exhibit there in the future. I have over fifty framed original paintings as well as numerous sculptures and constructions. Most of which incorporate lights and music for a person’s music library.
Art is and has been a major part of my life for 60 years.
Can you talk to us a bit about the challenges and lessons you’ve learned along the way? Looking back would you say it’s been easy or smooth in retrospect?
Being a responsible husband and father of three, and getting an education in the dental laboratory business. Running that business as both a technician and a business owner. Getting into galleries and being noticed as a serious artist.
As you know, we’re big fans of The Barnard Dental Laboratory. For our readers who might not be as familiar what can you tell them about the brand?
I and my wife started away from any friends or family living in Tacoma WA with an infant son. Our only income was the GI Bill monthly check. In 1974 it amounted to less than $300. My wife became pregnant with our second son and I was forced to take a part-time job after school hours. We could not afford the payment of $60 for our used car so we bought a large old Chevy wagon.
My second son was born with a life-threatening birth defect and required immediate surgery. I had put art on hold for a few years. I went on to eventually start my own dental lab business nearly forty years after graduating from a two-year technical college, My first job was at a busy dental lab as one of many workers in an assembly line factory situation. Then I was lucky enough to find a dentist that hired me to be his in-house technician. Even though that was my lucky break, (I only found out about the job from a neighbor who subscribed to the local newspaper);
I was suddenly thrown into producing crowns and bridges from the very start. Not having practical experience in the overall process, only school assignments, I had to catch on quickly and with the patient’s appointments for their teeth happening before I could have them finished I was overwhelmed.
I was working 10 to 12 hours a day. Then I would drive home to my family and since my wife didn’t drive we had to load up the kids and go out shopping from the 1000 sq. foot government subsidized rural home. Eventually, I designed and built six different dental lab spaces. I never could expand the business larger than one full-time employee but the clients I had were busy and loyal to me. I have had some success as an artist being retired and being known as someone with many skills. Looking back I don’t know how I did it.
Can you talk to us about how you think about risk?
Having been Honorably discharged from the USAF, I went home to Idaho with my English wife. She was taking a chance on being accepted by my family. I was risking finding a job in winter when there weren’t many to be had at that time of year in southern Idaho. Farming was ended; November cold and the snow were depressing. My wife was disappointed with the change. I drove to Tacoma WA and enrolled in Bates Voc-Tech College.
We lived very frugally. I was gone during the day and my wife stayed at the single-wide trailer with our four-month-old son all week. On weekends we had little money to spend and the gas crisis kept us home. I am never really worried about risk. There was a study about DNA that explained that there is a gene some people have which compels people to head out to try something new. The pioneers had it for sure.
Contact Info:
- Facebook: Steve Barnard
