Steve Linn

"Provocateur (Marcel Duchamp)" wall sculpture portrait

2013

Sandblasted carved glass, cast glass, bronze and wood. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing which references to interpret for the piece he then creates. Jack Kerouac was born Jean-Louis Lebris de Kerouac in Lowell, Massachusetts, in 1922, to French-Canadian parents. He won an athletic scholarship to Columbia University, where he met Allen Ginsberg and William Burroughs, but dropped out after one year after an argument with the football coach. He then became a merchant seaman all through World War II, with the idea of becoming a traveler and novelist in the tradition of Jack London and Thomas Wolfe. After Kerouac's stint in the Merchant Marines, he settled in New York and began his first novel, “The Town and the City”, which took about two years. His father died in 1946 and Jack lived with his mother, Gabrielle, to whom he was extremely devoted. He referred to her as Mémère, and she continued her work in a factory in order to support him while he was writing. During this time, he met a young would-be writer from Denver, Neal Cassady...

Sandblasted carved glass, cast glass, bronze and wood. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing which references to interpret for the piece he then creates. "I was born and raised in Chicago," Linn says, "and in 1956 before my 13th birthday, my father took me to Maxwell Street to buy me my first suit. This was a momentous occasion, not because I was getting a suit, but it was my introduction to the blues. Maxwell Street was the center of Jewish pushcart commerce and haberdashery emporiums, it was also where black blues musicians congregated, played, and thrived in harmony with their neighbors. My dad let me stay and listen that day and I became a life-long fan." The merchants provided electrical extension cords from their establishments to power the amplifiers of the musicians, and in return the musicians were an attraction to lure customers into the shops. Many famous blues musicians got their start on Maxwell Street having migrated to the city from the deep south: Muddy Waters, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, and Howlin...

Sandblasted carved glass, wood and bronze. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing whi...

Sandblasted carved glass, wood and bronze. Steve Linn describes himself as a documentary sculptor, conducting meticulous research on each of his selected subjects and choosing whi...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...

'We surround ourselves with elements from nature in the form of manicured lawns, sculpted trees, and our domesticated companions. We bend the natural world to our tastes and create a...