“Art From Steve Justice”

I was born in Homestead, in Pittsburgh, in 1956 (Monkey/ Gemini) during a period of labor unrest. I’m talking about my mother, not Homestead. Maybe Homestead too. She was 100% Finnish and my father was 100% engineer. I showed an early aptitude for art, which was a good thing because it kept me off the mean streets of Amherst Acres. I studied art for several years at the Carnegie Institute under Joseph C. Fitzpatrick, who’d also taught Andy Warhol.

I was dissuaded from continuing my studies in fine art by my wise elders, who were experts in career counseling, so I met them halfway and studied Industrial Design at the University of Cincinnati. I plied that trade in the Rust Belt for a few decades, creating a thousand manufacturing jobs while designing vases, drinkware, candleholders, car seats, storage containers, tires, doo-dads, what-nots and thingamajigs, for the likes of Sears, Indiana Glass, Candle-Lite, Coca-Cola, FTD, Century, Goodyear, Brody, Homco, and that ilk. My commercial floral vases are still being made, over thirty years later. My bottle-style Coke drinkware is recognized around the world. I also helped design the 2002 Winter Olympic torch.

Partway into my design career the Call of the Wild lured me back to making art, and I began painting large, satirical cartoon portraits, at first part-time and eventually full-time. Since then, I have shown my work 170+ times and have sold lots of paintings. I now reside in Rochester NY, with my wife Dr. Lorraine Justice, an internationally recognized design educator, and I continue to paint more prolifically than ever. In my art I am deeply committed to the three E’s of Entertaining, Enlightening and Educating viewers like you. Thank you .