Rick Stoner

Noted for his slightly abstract fruit still life paintings and also landscape subjects, Rick Stoner works from a studio in Longmont, Colorado. For his landscapes, he frequently works in the Four Corners area, saying: "The Four Corners area is where my heart and soul are."

Stoner was born in Great Bend, Kansas, but at age three moved with his family near the Jicarilla Apache Reservation in New Mexico. Then the family, supported by the father who worked for Phillips Petroleum, moved to Farmington, New Mexico and then to Cortez, Colorado.

From childhood Rick Stoner knew he wanted to be an artist and started with commercial art, studying graphic design at Colorado State University where he earned a bachelor's degree in 1974. He went to graduate school on a scholarship at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and took a job teaching printmaking at the University of Denver. However, the job was terminated because of funding cuts, and Stoner took money-earning jobs including house remodeling.

During this period, he discovered pastels, and from that time has been painting landscapes and still lifes, going back and forth between pastels and oil, and sometimes working 'en plein air' with the pastels.

Source:
Devon Jackson, "Contemplative Compositions", Southwest Art, February 2007, pp. 90-93

"Gourds on a Board"
21" x 32" ~ Oil on Masonite
Rick Stoner
$3,900.00