Artist, Sculptor, Author andPoet
Steinar Karlsen, a self described "wanderer" was born in Norway and began his quest for knowledge on a freighter plying the cargo route around South America at the age of sixteen. The initial adventure gave him a foretaste of a life that led him through many countries; dozens of careers, as he puts it, including commercial fishing, restauranteur, servic station owner, computer business finally, at age 47, settling on art as a vocation and writing as an avocation.
Parts of THE GIFT OF THE WIND were written in 1974, when he woke up from a dream about "the one traveling on the path of non-fogiveness". This led him to begin, in earnest, the journey of self-discovery and inner searching. The primary aim was to search out and find TRUTH no matter how painful or disturbing. By 1976, the rest of the pieces had fallen into place and he finished the initial manuscript which he photocopied and gave to those who came into his life, usually as a result of some personal tragedy or setback. Many copies were given away along the path he took.
He did not pursue having THE GIFT OF THE WIND published for almost 30 years because he felt the book should be illustrated. Though he had become an accomplished self taught painter, while recovering from an auto accident that required several years of recuperation, somehow the images did not come to him until much later, after he had begun sculpting in 1988. The cover photo is his depiction of Strong Elk, carved in Black Walnut. When, finally, he was prompted by a shaman, in Central Mexico, to expose the writing to a larger audience, he bacame willing to do so.
The images that came to him were created and he was able to complete the book and make it ready for publication. As a result of going deeply into the creative process for the sculptural pieces, he experienced many insights that saw THE GIFT OF THE WIND TRILOGY as a reality and this has become his focus. He has much written on BOOK II and BOOK III and is spending time in a small Tarasco Indian village in Central Mexico while doing much of the finish work on these books.
The winter of 2007-2008 finds him in Dutch Harbor, Alaska while finalizing the books and continuing his life of art and adventure. Still on the shelf is a yet to be published novel in English and an unfiished murder mystery in Norwegian.
For more information about Steinar's art go to: www.strongelk.com