Larisa Stevenson
"For me, making art is like breathing, a necessity of life and obviously painful when absent. It's part of my nature. I began when I was a little Russian kid growing up in Kazakhstan, encouraged by my father who was a painter and wood carver. In that place and time of the Soviet Union, it was expected of young girls to learn and practice some sort of practical craft. He encourage my knitting or sewing to be done creatively and useful to my art, as in doll making. He taught me to express myself through different mediums of art, whether it was painting, ice skating or doll making. My father pushed me beyond the ordinary and instilled a Jove of art classics that very much remains today.”
“I discovered clay as an adult. After sculpting my first face, I was hooked for life. Clay responded to every movement of my hands. It is a three dimensional form that molds, mutates and renews itself into a tangible lifeform. Although I also have done painting and doll making, clay became my absolute favorite medium. As my sculpting skills grew, I was able to express movement and emotions in my clay creations, whether portraits, figure, or animals. I love to sculpt them all.”
"Art is part of my nature. I know it is part of my destiny."
Larisa exhibits at the Aloft Gallery in Sonora. She also a member of the Blue Line Art Gallery in Sacramento and the Mother Lode Art Association. She shares her studio in Murphys, California with a very independent black cat named Yvette.
https://www.larisastevenson.com/
“I discovered clay as an adult. After sculpting my first face, I was hooked for life. Clay responded to every movement of my hands. It is a three dimensional form that molds, mutates and renews itself into a tangible lifeform. Although I also have done painting and doll making, clay became my absolute favorite medium. As my sculpting skills grew, I was able to express movement and emotions in my clay creations, whether portraits, figure, or animals. I love to sculpt them all.”
"Art is part of my nature. I know it is part of my destiny."
Larisa exhibits at the Aloft Gallery in Sonora. She also a member of the Blue Line Art Gallery in Sacramento and the Mother Lode Art Association. She shares her studio in Murphys, California with a very independent black cat named Yvette.
https://www.larisastevenson.com/
Meet Larisa Stevenson as featured in the April Aloft Email...
Aloft Art Gallery has over 40 local or regional artists who hang or place their artwork in the gallery. The gallery offers a diverse selection of artwork, from painted pieces to three dimensional clay pieces as well as photographs and other types of art.
Larisa Stevenson has been represented in the gallery for about three years. She is an artist who sculpts clay to create sometimes whimsical, sometimes more serious pieces of fine art.
Larisa was raised in Kazakhstan. Her father was a woodworker, artist and photographer and he felt it was a cultural imperative to encourage his young daughters to appreciate art in its various ways, buying art supplies and working with them to create drawings or paintings. As Larisa said, “There were no coloring books and no television, so we had to create ways to entertain ourselves.”
School offered yet another avenue for learning art, with classes that focused on handicrafts, such as doll-making and sewing. Larisa said “sewing my younger sister’s costumes for various holidays helped me to be creative and learn about decorating and the arts.”
In college, she chose a curriculum which focused on art but that might also offer a pathway to a career, an industrial design degree. The courses taught her more about drawing, painting, design and how to create art. She realized that she had a gift for sculpting, which was very fulfilling. She harnessed that sculpting talent in a business which designed commercial products by making clay models to use for molds.
She married, raised a daughter, and eventually settled in California. At Columbia College, she added wheel throwing of clay to her repertoire, before she discovered she much preferred sculpting clay by hand, working slower and with infinite avenues to create pieces that inspire her. As she said, “There are so many possibilities for creating something unique.”
Larisa oversees the gallery on various days, as do all artists, and she loves to visit with the people who come to see the large variety of artwork that the gallery offers.
Aloft Art Gallery has over 40 local or regional artists who hang or place their artwork in the gallery. The gallery offers a diverse selection of artwork, from painted pieces to three dimensional clay pieces as well as photographs and other types of art.
Larisa Stevenson has been represented in the gallery for about three years. She is an artist who sculpts clay to create sometimes whimsical, sometimes more serious pieces of fine art.
Larisa was raised in Kazakhstan. Her father was a woodworker, artist and photographer and he felt it was a cultural imperative to encourage his young daughters to appreciate art in its various ways, buying art supplies and working with them to create drawings or paintings. As Larisa said, “There were no coloring books and no television, so we had to create ways to entertain ourselves.”
School offered yet another avenue for learning art, with classes that focused on handicrafts, such as doll-making and sewing. Larisa said “sewing my younger sister’s costumes for various holidays helped me to be creative and learn about decorating and the arts.”
In college, she chose a curriculum which focused on art but that might also offer a pathway to a career, an industrial design degree. The courses taught her more about drawing, painting, design and how to create art. She realized that she had a gift for sculpting, which was very fulfilling. She harnessed that sculpting talent in a business which designed commercial products by making clay models to use for molds.
She married, raised a daughter, and eventually settled in California. At Columbia College, she added wheel throwing of clay to her repertoire, before she discovered she much preferred sculpting clay by hand, working slower and with infinite avenues to create pieces that inspire her. As she said, “There are so many possibilities for creating something unique.”
Larisa oversees the gallery on various days, as do all artists, and she loves to visit with the people who come to see the large variety of artwork that the gallery offers.