Stephen M Rapp (1948-) was raised back and forth between the red rock deserts of Mormon Southern Utah, and the 1950's erotic glamour streets of Hollywood. Both arenas provided him with vivid images of color and sensuality. His failed academic history ended several attempts at higher educational establishments, thus sending him into the life of labor, often hard, and self-employment. He skirted the world of painting for 40 years as a writer/filmmaker, a founding member of the Sundance Film Institute, a designer and eventually a builder/gardener/craftsman. He grew up as a young boy amidst his father’s art and a large art book collection where he discovered his childhood favorites: Rockwell, Hart Benton, N.C. Wyeth, Dixon and the beloved Pre Raphaelites. 

 

The death of his artsy mother-in-law recently found him knee high in canvas and art supplies, living in the deep forests of Western North Carolina, with time on his hands. 

 

Twenty years in Jungian analysis afforded him a massive dream journal and a file of 5,000 personal images. Those images became as paintings, expressions of honest work, and the pleasures and the sorrows of a way of life fading away.

​