Meet Spring 2008
Featured Artist Steven Schafer
"Rose Laundry" by Spring 2008 Featured Artist Stephen Schafer
The public will have the opportunity to meet Spring ArtWalk 2008 Featured Artist Stephen Schafer (Schaf) and view his photography at the Museum of Ventura County. As you may know the Museum is undergoing an expansion and Schaf will likely be showing his work in a Museum satellite location in downtown during ArtWalk.
Stephen Sch�fer, founded his photographic studio, Sch�f Photo, in 1990. Specializing in commercial and fine-art photography, he has also mastered infrared photography techniques. Stephen's photography projects have allowed him to travel the Americas, Europe, the Middle East, Africa and Asia; photographing, and teaching photography around the world. He received his technical education from Brooks Institute of Photography in Santa Barbara. For his personal work, he started shooting black and white infrared film in 1987 and has been creating fine art exhibits in this medium ever since.
Stephen's photographs and multi-media productions have been used in magazines, books, calendars, city brochures, museum installations and trade expositions such as the 1993 World’s Fair in Tejon, South Korea. In 1997, he taught fine-art photography aboard the University of Pittsburgh’s Semester at Sea program traveling to ten countries around the world.
He has recently focused his energy on various local arts committees and boards and is a vocal arts advocate in the City of Ventura. A past board member of the Ventura and Santa Barbara Advertising Clubs, the Ventura Chamber Music Festival, and current vice-president of the San Buenaventura Conservancy. In 2002, Stephen was gallery coordinator for the Artists' Union Gallery, creating an exhibit calendar, establishing gallery policies, and doing marketing during the gallery's infancy. Also in 2002 he coordinated Saturday Night at the Galleries. He was president of the Buenaventura Art Association (BAA) in 2005 through 2006, and initiated the BAA's contract for the Harbor Village Gallery with the Ventura Port District. From 1998 to 2006, he volunteered as a City of Ventura Public Art Commissioner. Schaf is the creator of 3D~Ventura 2006 and the PhotoVentura 2005 & 2007 citywide art exhibits.
To date Stephen's first public art project was a temporary installation produced for the Harvest ArtWalk in November 2003 when he transformed a parking lot in downtown Ventura into a project called Body of Work, a 50 foot long photo-mosaic made up of 1100 photographs in the shape of a man's body. He exhibits his fine art photography extensively regionally, and he has taught all levels of photography at Ventura College. He lectures on infrared photography and the business of art at the Julia Dean Photo Workshops in Venice. He maintains a professional black & white darkroom at Art-City Studios on the West Side. Stephen has lived in Ventura, since 1973, and he now resides in a restored 1881 farmhouse in downtown, with his wife Sherry. Apparently he doesn't sleep much!