NATE’S STUDIO 1977

For the first few years, Stephen would travel back to Palo Alto, during summer break from his new teaching position at The University of Iowa. It was during this time that he would occasionally visit Nate Oliveira’s studio at Stanford University. They had become friends and it was a place that Stephen gravitated back to when he had time.

Oliveira was a master of the monoprint process, and was happy to teach Stephen. Specifically, he had perfected painting on a plate directly, and then pressing the paper upon the plate. He taught Stephen his practice of continuously modifying the painted image-achieving vastly different results in each succession of prints.

The drawing, painting, scraping and wiping offered ever changing effects- which appealed very much to Schultz. He was astonished with each finished result- with such luminosity shining through the marks, from the paper underneath.

Stephen depicted Nate’s Stanford campus studio in the following pieces. Utilitarian items are often ignored, which are necessary for functionality in a classroom- chairs, tables, a studio light and a chalkboard as backdrop. Instead, a student’s focus is on what is being taught, and rightly so. Rarely does one stop in the moment, to take in the basic items that support the process of teaching.