Spartan Profile: Steve Prince

COMMUNITY-GROUNDED ART

            His art is multi-media, ranging from life-size bronze busts to mixed-media installations to sculptures to murals to wood-block prints, which he makes using a steamroller.  One of his most stunning art works is a 15-foot kinetic stainless steel sculpture titled “Song for John,” dedicated to the late John Scott, an MSU artist who taught in New Orleans.  Says Hampton, VA high school teacher and artist Steve A. Prince, M.F.A. ’95, “He was my professor at Xavier University, a great influence on my life as an artist, educator, and father and the reason I attended Michigan State.”

            Prince has exhibited around the globe, won numerous awards, and been artist-in-residence in Santa Catarina, Brazil, and at the Steward School, Richmond, VA, where he did a series of woodcuts and linoleum-cuts called All That Jazz.  “Scott reared me in the philosophy that all art is grounded in the community,” explains Steve.  “I treat each medium as a language.  Each has possibilities but also limitations.  I try each, and I try to push the envelope.  You’re like a scientist, experimenting with materials and seeing what you can get by mixing and matching.” 

            His kinetic sculpture connects a bunch of words that have historical meaning to both John Scott and the city of Hampton.  Steve says his MSU experience was very tough initially.  “It was very disrupting,” he recalls.  “I’m from the tropics, and it was freezing.  I came from a small institution.  MSU’s size just blew me away.”  But Steve says he was able to create his own community within MSU and thrived.  “I’m a very adaptive person, so I really enjoyed my second and third year.” 

            He is currently working on a mural, tentatively called Community Collage, at a youth center in Hampton.  He’s also collaborating on a comic book project to help encourage local kids to read.  “It all goes back to making connections with people and community,” he says.