One day in the 1970s, when Steve Stone was participating in a high school art class in Columbus, Ohio, his teacher offered him a sobering statement, followed by a poignant question.
“Ya know, you’re probably not going to be a great painter,” the teacher said. “Do you know what commercial art is?”
Stone wasn’t sure, but knew it had something to do with graphic design and typography. He then began actively exploring it to find out more.
“I started ‘geeking out’ on album cover art, magazine design, typography and Volkswagen advertising — my dad was a VW guy and he passed that on to me,” Stone said. “In 11th grade, I was lucky enough to get into a vocational school where, for half of my junior and senior year, I studied commercial art—drawing logos, making fake ads and learning typography, graphic design and some illustration.”
He loved doing it and said he was “crazy lucky” to have that opportunity at such a young age.
-
Steve Stone stands in front of his art piece, “Pincasso,” created using map pins on foam cork board. It is one of the creations of Stone, a retired advertising veteran, that is featured in a show at the Arts Guild of Sonoma through Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. Photo taken on Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, at the guild’s gallery in Sonoma. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)
1 of 5
Steve Stone stands in front of his art piece, “Pincasso,” created using map pins on foam cork board. It is one of the creations of Stone, a retired advertising veteran, that is featured in a show at the Arts Guild of Sonoma through Monday, Nov. 24, 2025. Photo taken on Friday, Oct. 31, 2025, at the guild’s gallery in Sonoma. (John Burgess / The Press Democrat)
After graduating from high school, Stone enrolled at Columbus College of Art & Design, where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree, with a major in advertising and design.
He went on to devote 36 years to the creative side of advertising, during which he cofounded two award-winning San Francisco agencies — Black Rocket and Heat — and oversaw the creation of Super Bowl commercials for Yahoo, Electronic Arts and Morgan Stanley.
Stone retired from his advertising career in 2020 and earlier this year decided to create his own art.
He developed an interest in art growing up and while working toward his bachelor’s degree took classes not only in design, package design and advertising, but also in fine arts.
“The fine arts took a back seat for a long time as I leaped into the world of advertising and design after graduating,” Stone said. “It wouldn’t be until decades later that I started to create my own art.”
He creates mixed-media pieces in his Sonoma studio.
Several of them are included in the “Thanks to Art” exhibit featured at the Arts Guild of Sonoma through Nov. 24. The guild, 140 E. Napa St. in Sonoma, is open Wednesday through Monday from 11 a.m. to 5 p.m.
“They gave me 7 feet of space, so I went for it and jammed it with a mix of what I’ve been playing around with,” said Stone, who is the exhibition’s featured artist.
When he began working on his pieces in his office this year, he focused on objects reflecting his passions, including tennis-related items and portraits of art and film heroes, such as Pablo Picasso and Alfred Hitchcock. He then explored and embraced his red/green color blindness.
“It was embarrassing to grow up with it,” Stone said. “I had to figure out ways to adapt and survive through art school and as an art director in advertising. It was a challenge.”
In two of his new pieces, he creates his own version of the Ishihara color blindness tests that he took as a child.
“Those tests, with the hidden numbers or letters, still freak me out to this day,” he said.
Many of Stone’s pieces explore concepts and uncommon juxtapositions while using familiar materials, such as deconstructed Converse sneakers and Levi’s jeans on top of photographs; blooming flowers or colorful balloons stenciled on top of bull’s eyes from a rifle-shooting range, blended to convey a message of peace; and profanity spelled out in pins on Styrofoam tennis balls.
Other creations include a highly polished word made of pins set in a crusty garage-style frame and a broken tennis racket dipped in gold paint.
He has used map pins from the time he started creating his pieces.
“I used them mainly because they are very clean,” he said. “If I spilled them, they didn’t make a mess. It’s that simple. Oh, plus the meditative aspect was good for me.”
Stone said he became obsessed, creating many pieces using map pins.
“Then, after many blisters, I eventually cleared out our old barn to make an art studio where I could get a little messy,” he said. “I started experimenting with stencils, spray paint and collage. Now I have the space to play more freely and make a mess. I love it.”
He continues to use these artistic media, as well as map pins and cut, hole-punched and torn paper.
“I think that with the pins, there is a precision and meditativeness that become meaningful,” he said. “The medium draws focus and quiet: The viewer senses a patient hand at work in a world where that is rare.”
He said that the viewer can also perceive this in the hole-punched paper in his color blindness test pieces.
“The viewer senses the artist holding the hole punch and thinks about where the artist will go with it next,” he said. “The viewer can sense the tactile process—unlike a painting, in which you never sense the actual brush, the tool making it.”
Stone has long been interested in spray painting as an artistic medium.
“I secretly want to be a graffiti artist, but I think that is a young man’s game,” he said. “But I do get a thrill out of doing something on a more controlled scale. I think of it as a poor man’s screen print.”
He said there is something daring a confident about using spray cans.
“There are some happy accidents, too, with the overspray,” Stone said. “It also makes me feel like a bit of a rascal or misfit, and that makes me very happy.”
He is thriving on his new avenue of creative expression.
“For years, I lent my creative voice to brands,” Stone said. “Now, I’m reclaiming it for myself.”
Stone feels a need to create pieces every day.
“That’s been happening,” he said. “I’m planning to do more work exploring my colorblindness—even pushing it to messages about diversity and inclusion.”
He plans to continue creating assemblage pieces, partly by stenciling over some of his old polaroid photos.
“And I’ll continue to explore text in my art, where the words are both subject and material, asking the question, ‘What happens when a word doesn’t just say something, but becomes something?’” he said.
Stone had not shown his creations prior to the Arts Guild of Sonoma exhibit, but he will have a one-person show at Alley Gallery in Sonoma from Feb. 11 to March 3.
“I’m a bit nervous to put myself out there,” he said. “But as my girlfriend reminds me, ‘You’ve had millions of people see your work during the Super Bowl. Why are you nervous now?’’’
Other Articles
No Comment! Be the first one.