Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Stephen Heigh. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Stephen, appreciate you joining us today. Learning the craft is often a unique journey from every creative – we’d love to hear about your journey and if knowing what you know now, you would have done anything differently to speed up the learning process.

It all started in early childhood. The idea of becoming a professional artist and designer was planted like a seed at around age three because I watched my father work in his home art studio. My mother said that I would climb up onto his drawing chair and sit at the drawing board and draw for hours at a time. My father was a successful design director for four major companies in his career and early on was an Advanced Stylist in Ford Motor Company’s Advanced Styling Division in the 1950’s. He designed future automobiles and had exceptional drawing and rendering skills and a vision of what the future would look like. He was also a combat veteran from WWII and was a Spec5 Army Engineer in the combat battalion. He was all throughout Europe during WWII and worked with a young Roy Lichtenstein who was drafted just like my father. Roy Lichtenstein would go onto in the 1960’s “The “Pop Art” movement acclaim. In the Army military service of WWII, my father and Roy drew maps together in the 69th Infantry Division.

I was exposed to art at a very young age through art books and watching my dad work on illustration and interior design projects. He never really formally sat down with me to show a specific skill, but his professionalism of getting up each day and going to work to support our family was impressive to me. My mother and father were raising six children. I’m the youngest of six. He always looked sharp in his suit going off to work. He would take me to work with him at times and I would draw at a designer’s board as if I worked there. In my younger years I wanted to be Walt Disney or Charles Schulz and was looking at comic book art that I would copy the characters from.
In my teen years my father would love to have me work on professional projects that he was working on. I learned how to render architectural illustrations. I often think that the 1960’s and 70’s were crucial in my development as a professional. It was an explosion of pop culture. I became aware of a career path that seemed where I should head and that was as an illustrator and designer. I became enamored with the history of American Illustration and especially the Golden Age. I had books on Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Dean Cornwell, Jessie Wilcox Smith and countless other greats. I poured over the imagery filled with light and shadow. I immersed myself into that world. The kids in the neighborhood had sports heroes and music heroes, but my heroes were these Golden Age illustrators. They could paint and draw so well, and I had to learn how did they do that? I had no fancy ideas on being an artist and I knew it would take years of hard work and I’m still working at it each day. There is one thing for sure and that’s we’re never done learning. It has to be in your soul, and everything is felt visually and emotionally.
I think the biggest contributor to success is finding that thing that you are passionate about and so taken by it. I always see the greatness in others’ work. I try to do the best I can with what skills I have developed.

I attended art school and chose a field of study called “Visual Communications” that was taught at the Art Institutes around the country. I attended the Art Institute of Philadelphia. It was a program in the late 1970’s through 1980’s. The curriculum was drawing, painting, graphic design, advertising design, 3-D design, printmaking, typography and art history. The school prepared you for options as a professional. The classes were taught by working professionals in the field. I ended up professionally utilizing every skill I learned. There’re skills not taught that all creatives learn and that is understanding oneself, humility and having the belief in oneself that with hard work and dedication that you will get there. There is no easy path, and it requires thousands of hours of work. It may take ten years, twenty, thirty to get to a point of satisfaction. Artists are never satisfied. It’s a constant search in the creation of art. I had a teacher at school named Fred Danziger who is a great painter, and he took notice of my early work, and he really encouraged me. He could see that I had that artist mentality in me. I would always take on the hardest way to do an assignment. I have always had that drive to work hard, challenge myself and rise to the occasion. There’s nothing I could have done differently because it all happens in steps with the most important step being to draw, draw and draw some more.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

I have worn many hats creatively. If you ever wondered who designed that brand identity label on your favorite clothing or who does greeting card art or who designs Olympic posters, signage and concession areas at sports stadiums? It is what I did. If you ever wondered who wrote that children’s book and illustrated it or illustrated that magazine cover? It’s what I did. I designed packaging, I worked for Aramark Inc. as a senior designer/illustrator full-time for many years and also worked freelance often in other areas of design. I’m very proud of being an author and illustrator of national award-winning children’s books. The writing and illustrating of books were in my mind since around twenty years old when I had won the national American Artist Magazine cover art competition selected by famed American illustrator Bob Peak for the June 1981 cover. I was a kid and Bob Peak was one of my idols. I had no idea he was the judge. It was the spark of believing I could do this thing called art. If I worked hard and studied my craft it was possible. The freelance clients were Woolrich and several other prominent clients in the clothing industry. I was very proud of the work for Woolrich from labels, hangtags, screen printed and embroidery art, buttons, patches and designer seasonal theme board art. I worked on Disney products and that was really special and something I have always loved since childhood. I designed and illustrated for the Franklin Mint. I designed graphics for major sports stadiums. The main thing was the diversity of products from greeting cards to books and clothing. I worked with interior designers and architects as well creating renderings of proposed projects. The foundation of it all was my fine art pursuits. I never stopped drawing and painting as a fine artist. Art is a universal language and every culture prides itself on its art. My work has been shown in art museums around the world. There are of course thousands of artists in the world that would do anything better than me, but I do the best I can with the talent I was given to develop. I always look to the greats with such admiration. The proudest art moment for me was having the film director George Lucas select my work for his Star Wars Visions Art book and traveling international art museum exhibit. I connected with him on a nostalgic level. I think the connection in all that I have done or do is a sense of nostalgia. I was fascinated as a child with the simplest things like an acorn or a pinecone. I saw the beauty in the common thing. I’m an observer and a recorder. A visual storyteller. I was the kid who bought comic books not to read them, but to look at the pictures..

What’s the most rewarding aspect of being a creative in your experience?

It’s sharing with others and bringing neat things to completion. There’s a sense of accomplishment that you can hold in your hands. It’s real and not just talk. I like that it can be passed on to others. In being a professional artist there’s the ability to inspire someone else. I love the process and how it changes over time. The fine tuning and often the overhaul. It’s a field in which you can reinvent yourself. It’s a winding path and is adventurous. Art is everything and it is deeply seeded. It has roots and learning history about it is enthralling. There’s a lot of labels that can be put on creative people. I always try to defy labels and just see it all as simply creative. I go out of my way to defy labels. There’s a cool thing with sharing with your loved one’s a successful project. As one grows older the appreciation for art increases is what I have found and the joy in seeing others succeed is what it’s all about.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative?

I don’t think anyone is non-creative. I think we are all born with artistic tendencies of just human nature in that we all like to create something. There are varying degrees of practice and study involved in doing anything professionally. I think generally people can put it into a context in what their pursuit or passion is in.

I think if there’s any area where someone does not understand is in the constant evolution of an artist and how they go about creating art. An artist goes through several phases and rarely ever completely satisfied. They always want to do better and are often their own worst critic. It’s like the phases in life in a creative journey of beginning, middle and end. I like building things and I like painting things. They are the same, but the construction method is different, and the mind is the same. I think a big danger is to let outside interference take over the thought process when it comes to art. The answers to questions are within you. I believe artists are observers and they see details and will look at something differently based on more subtle qualities..

Thank you so much. The creative life is very different then most paths in life. You really have to be resilient and it’s okay to feel lost or fearful of new things. I think in today’s world it may even be harder. In my old days I had the opportunity to work, get paid and learn from mentors. You could observe and there was patience with employers that understood there’s a learning curve. We live in a world where everyone thinks they have to be the American Idol now and that is just not true or shouldn’t be. There’s so many behind the scenes people working creatively that rarely get any credit and they are content and are brilliant. They don’t desire the spotlight and just want to do good work.  I’m a third generation creative in my family and now my daughter and son are the fourth generation of creatives. My daughter is a professional illustrator and my son is in architectural and facilities design. It was the reality of this is what I know and this is what I can do. It becomes your very being and you don’t think you are anything special and it’s like becoming a carpenter and learning your craft. In many ways a builder.  It’s survival and not a race to fame and fortune. She too at a very young age was pouring over books and developing a sense of what she might do in the arts. In some way art chooses you and you follow that winding path. I know from facebook friends those kings of design that I became friends with on the internet. They are the old heads that changed the game. I can name two very distinct one’s in Mike Salisbury and John Van Hammersveld. They are still going and did some of the most iconic work in design ever. We see it everyday. I was a huge fan of Milton Glaser too and my daughter was enthralled by his books on design growing up. I would see her in her room late at night with the Milton Glaser book reading. It made me happy to see she had such an interest. It was that idea that someone did not have to be defined by one thing and could be both a designer and artist.

Contact Info:

• Facebook: Stephen Heigh Art
• Other: My work is on the internet. there’s a few youtube videos of my work in various places.