Sephen Jack - Artist, Author, Beach Bum:
I am the son of a half-breed Cherokee from an Oklahoma, Indian Reservation. At the age of eleven I was orphaned. In the mid-60's was a long-haired Southern California teenager, and came of age in 1966 during the summer of love. I stood on the corner of Haight & Ashbury, San Francisco and communed with My Generation - The Hippy Generation - Peace, Love, the let's Party Generation.
The Vietnam War expanded and I became a soldier in the U.S.Army until a Military Chaplin gave me and 16 other soldiers our Last Rites - I was the sole survivor - that cut my military career a tad short. I stood shoulder to shoulder with Brave Heroes and I walked alone through the midst of killers and thieves.
I started my career as an Artist when I was in the 6th grade selling my pencil drawings to classmates and teachers for ice cream money - I've been an Artist ever since. I've put pen to paper, paint to canvas, chisel to stone. I've sculpted clay-steel-and sand and captured images on film.
As a story teller I have penned many stories - true and fiction. I have ventured only recently to allow others to read my stories. If you have read my stories I hope you enjoyed them.
My Life Experiences:
I've traveled around the world a few times and consider myself an Adventurer. I've surfed the waves off the shores of many nations, swam the clear blue water of the Red Sea, and piloted a plane up high in the wild blue yonder soaring like an eagle over California's Mojave Desert. I skied the snowy slopes of many mountains.
I crossed the Arabian Desert with a group of Nomads, by jeep - not camel. I explored many old gold mines left by the 1849 Gold Rush: "There's gold in them there hills." I've also spelunker many natural caves under Earth's surface. I scuba-dove many coral reefs around the world and dove the Caribbean Ocean floor in search of sunken treasure. I para-sailed over a school of Hammerhead Sharks near Cancun (unintentionally-who would do that on purpose). I explored the interior of the Mayan Pyramids in Chichen Itza, Mexico. And scaled to the top of 'Vihara Nam Hai Kwan Se Im Pu Sa Buddhist Temple,' in West Java.
I enjoyed dancing to wild music on the rooftops of Singapore and toured the Go-Go Bars of Soi Cowboy, Bangkok. During a dig in the deserted city near Tulum, Mexico I unearthed a Mayan Relic, along with a small red scorpion that was pinching my finger and striking my thumbnail again and again with its poisonous tail. I walked across the crust of Kīlauea Volcano, Hawaiian a few days before it erupted - the boiling steam rising from beneath the Earth's smoking crust melted the soles of my climbing shoes. I won a Regatta Sailing Competition off the coast of Paradise Island in the Bahamas and drank Bahama Mommas as Hurricane Bertha blew past.
I have chased UFOs (but I've not caught one -- yet).
I've thrown dice in Vegas, White Water Rafted in the Kern River. I drove Speedway Car No.55 around Bakersfield Speedway Race Track. I raced Dune Buggies over the sand dunes of Southern California. I've sold my art on the strand in Venice Beach, California, and created many mermaid sand sculpture on many sandy beaches around the world.
As an Engineer, I worked on NASA's Space Shuttle at Edwards Air Base. I was a Project Engineer on the Portland, Oregon Nuclear Power Plant. The Quality Control Engineer on a Geothermal Power Plant on Gunung Salak (volcano), Java. and the Chief Engineer on Coal-Fired Power Plant supplying electrical power to the Batu Hijau Gold Mine Project in Sumbawa, Indonesia.
I worked as a Bartender / Bouncer at the Kasbah Saloon, in Rock Springs, Wyoming at night and searched for "The Hole in the Wall Gang's" buried loot during the day.
I am the Artist Beach Bum you saw walking in the surf wearing a Panama hat on his head, a flowered shirt on his back and surfer shorts on his butt.
Presently I live on the island of Java, Indonesia at the edge of a rainforest on the west coastline of the Indian Ocean.