Bio: Steven Ross Brownell Born in Fort Wayne, Indiana. Moved to Chicago for a short time and then settled in the Battle Creek area in Michigan. Took one art class in my senior year, There, my art teacher, Mr. Mackie, wondered why I hadn’t taken any art classes before. He seemed somehow impressed with me. During high school I was really into pastels and that interest stayed with me for several more years. I also had a fascination with making wooden frames, mostly old pieces of oak, and framing my more likable pastels. The frames were rough and sturdy. The first competition I entered was called, “Battle Creek Landmarks Competition”, in 1978. I didn’t want to do the usual buildings or centers. So I settled with a park called Minges Brook Park. There I took some photos of what I thought was an aesthetic scene looking through an arched bridge with a road going through it. Along side is the Minges Brook with the shadows of trees on the dark pavement. Thus, called,” Minges Brook”. I believe it was unaccepted but a relative, Aunt Margaret Leatherman, thought it was nice and bought it. Kellogg Community College was the beginning of a four-year study to become a high school art teacher. It was interesting and I enjoyed most of my art instructors. My drawing teacher, Mr. Collopy, and ceramics teacher were quite inspiring. I also enjoyed my art history classes with Mr. Hubbard. After that I went to Western Michigan University. I found most of the professors knowledgeable and helpful. The art history classes also drew my interest. I enjoyed searching for information and writing the papers due. Just before I graduated from WMU I entered the Kalamazoo Area Show in 1982, and had one painting accepted, called,” Kay” Shortly after that, I had the opportunity to go to Thailand. So, in 1982, I hastily graduated with a BS in Art, with the idea of coming back to WMU to pick up the last two classes for my teaching certification. Well, that never happened. While in Thailand I kept up doing art in the form of pencil drawings. I would draw whatever came to mind and sometimes would render drawings of Bangkok scenes. In 1998 I felt the urge to enter a local competition that I ran across in the newspaper. It said that it was accepting artists internationally. I applied and did three paintings with the theme of Thai culture. The paintings were about 2 ½ by 3 feet. None of the paintings were accepted. After that, I decided to search worldwide for competitions and do more painting that suites my character and personality and find out if anyone likes what I do. I also just wanted to show my work, and online sites seemed to be the logical choice. Later I found out that the Internet sites are saturated with a myriad of artwork that seems endless. And when you see the actual painting in person it usually looks different and you quite often have a different feeling and opinion of that work. So, I decided to try to send some of my artwork to galleries or art centers if possible. After I settled in Bangkok and entered competitions. In 2000, Period Gallery was the first place to accept one of my paintings. That painting was called, “Crab Over Shipwreck”.