DAVE
STEPHENS
After graduating with honors from Miami
Dade Community College in 1972 in Graphic Arts, I spent several
years learning the nitty-gritty of the real world in jobs with
ad agencies and design studios before starting my freelance design
business.
In 1984, I moved to Los Angeles, where
I was a Senior Art Director with Bernard Hodes, a recruitment
ad agency. After a year of heavy deadlines and valley smog, I
escaped to Northern California where I freelanced for Austin Knight
Inc., another recruitment ad agency. I also did design work for
the prestigious Colonna & Farrel firm in St. Helena, which
specialized in wine label design.
I was offered an in-house office at
Campbell & Associates in Santa Rosa, and served as the firms
Senior Art Director. Our group won several of the most highly
sought-after accounts in the area. One of these was the Sonoma
County Fair, for which work we won multiple Gold Sadie Awards
in creative competitions held by the Sonoma County Art Directors
Club.
Independently of Campbell & Associates,
I did design work for EMG Guitar Pickups, the premier manufacturer
of high tech guitar electronics in the industry. Some of my work
for EMG was featured in Print Magazine, a top graphic design trade
journal.
I also began a 15+ year association
with Shrapnel Records, a small record company specializing in
virtuoso electric guitar players. I have designed hundreds of
album covers for the Shrapnel label as well as for the company's
Blues Bureau and Tone Center labels. We have published the first
version of Shrapnel Records' e-commerce site in 1995, replacing
it several years later with a Filemaker-driven site.
In Santa Rosa, I also did work for a
host of other local accounts with national recognition, including
Spectrum Oils, Pedroncelli Wines, Deaf Dog Coffee, and Murphy
Goode Winery.
At home, I am slave to my Siamese cat
Lita, who has trained me to lift her up to where her food is kept
out of reach of the dogs. If she loses track of me in the house
I hear about it and have to report my whereabouts or I get yelled
at in cat language. Lita occasionally consents to share me with
my other cat Layla, who is painfully shy and usually hides from
Suzannes dogs in the bedroom. Both are extremely annoyed
that Suzannes two Shelties, who have discovered that I am
an easy mark for dog cookies, now follow me around the house barking
for treats.
I also am crazy insane about playing
blues guitar. I taught myself by playing along with my favorite
artists CDs at home, but I was scared to death to play in
front of people. But that all changed when Suz pushed me out on
stage at a local blues jam one night. Somehow I survived the adrenalin
rush, got a standing ovation, and became a confirmed audience
addict. Since then, I have played as a member of a blues jam host
band two or three nights a week. I also collect old Gibson Marauders
and own and play several other guitars. I can waste hours on Ebay
dreaming about paying $200 for a old $10,000 guitar someone found
in the attic.
My favorite form of meditation is exploring
our local orchard roads on my recumbent bike (a Lightening Stealth),
which I do almost everyday, weather permitting. Suzanne and I
are vegetarians and I am interested in alternative health approaches
and spiritual studies. My lifes ambition is to test-drive
a UFO, but I still havent had any luck convincing one to
land in our back yard.
I was heavily absorbed in jewelry-making
for several years, doing my own casting, stone-cutting and silver
and gold fabrication. My work was featured in a book on silversmithing,
in Yahoo! Internet Life magazine and in Lapidary
Journal. I've had to cut back on jewelry-making since I
began devoting so much time to playing in blues jams.
I realize I need a hobby, but who has
the time?
SUZANNE
STEPHENS
I have been inspired to pursue
lots of different interests since at least age four, when I told
my parents, I want to be a nurse lady in the daytime, an
artist lady at night, and a golf lady on the weekends.
Within a few years, I would have added
stunt water skier, ballerina, pianist and Olympic swimmer to my
list of career goals. By the fifth
grade, I was constantly in trouble for "wasting" notebook
paper, so my parents focused my artistic energy by enrolling me
in private art lessons, my favorite activity through high school
graduation.
I studied art history and fine arts
at Hollins College, Roanoke, VA, then studied fashion design at
the Fashion Institute of Technology in New York City, where I
graduated with highest honors. A few years of work in the fashion
design field showed me that my true interest was in drawing, not
sewing, so I enrolled in a Charlotte, NC community college, where
I studied graphic design and fashion illustration.
Soon I began paying my dues with several
years as a fashion illustrator and graphic designer for two Southeastern
department store chains and a newspaper. My freelance work on
the side eventually expanded into a graphic design studio. At
the same time, I developed a passion for whitewater canoeing and
kayaking that consumed every spare minute for nearly fifteen years.
Certified as a canoe and kayak instructor by the American Red
Cross and the American Canoe Association, I taught for our local
whitewater club and the American Red Cross.
My studio quickly expanded into a full-service
advertising agency, becoming known known as one of Charlottes
hottest creative shops. My staff and I won dozens of awards in
local, regional and national creative competitions. Our clients
included retail stores, hotels, a hardware/software developer
and several hospitals. Later we specialized in healthcare marketing,
providing marketing, media and creative strategic planning, media
buying and creative services for an HMO and for eight Southeastern
hospitals.
When ad agency burn-out took its toll,
I headed for the North Carolina mountains to become Publications
Manager and a parttime kayak instructor and raft guide for Nantahala
Outdoor Center, a highly esteemed whitewater school and mecca
for whitewater boaters. When the real world called again, I moved
to San Francisco, where I freelanced to ad agencies and a book
publisher and taught canoeing for the UCSF outdoor program.
Since Dave and I moved to Oregon in
1994, I have specialized in Web site design and coding while Dave
does both Web graphics and print design. Our Web design clients
have included Geocities.com, third largest ISP in the U. S. before
its purchase by Yahoo!; Silicon Valley multimedia developer Docuventure,
Inc.; Bingo.com, the Vertexgroup, RealTSolutions, Aftermath Media,
Homeseekers.com, CoinScape and the SchoolHouse Retreat. I also
enjoy mentoring other Web designers.
Never content to do just one thing,
I have also been studying percussion, learning djembe, congas
and drumset. My current focus is on learning Afro/Cuban conga
drumming styles, which I love to play with funk music.
I also devote time to caring for our
menagerie of pets and to long walks with my adopted Sheltie Sage,
who has one crippled leg. Sage attracts lots of attention since
he received a dog wheelchair for Christmas. Our afternoon walks,
which have turned into afternoon runs, are frequently interrupted
by people asking about Sage and his wheels.
I get back on the river for some whitewater
boating now and then, but have largely handed over those pleasures
to my son Craig, who inherited my love of kayaking. He is lead
instructor for Endless River Adventures, one of my clients, and
teaches kayaking in North Carolina during the summer and leads
kayaking trips to Ecuador, Costa Rica and Mexico during the winter.
My current dream is of combining a trip
to Costa Rica to visit Craig with a trip to Cuba to study drumming
with the masters. I hope the Orichas the African nature
spirits to whom many Cuban songs are dedicated hear my
prayers!
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