Local Artist Buzz, Steve Worthy

By Sonia Lee Garber

Whenever I run into Steve Worthy he bursts onto the scene like a tornado. His mom would tell him when he was a child that with his energy, he was always “ripping and running…whether it be with marbles, stickball, baseball, basketball, or whatever…I was somewhat of a jock”, says Worthy.

Steve Worthy’s early childhood home was in the Bronx, about eight blocks from Yankee Stadium.  Worthy fondly recalls attending Yankee games as a kid. 

“It was a dollar fifty to get into Yankee Stadium in the bleachers.  They’re not the fancy seats but I remember us, (me and my friends) yelling to Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris. ‘Hey Mick, how you doing?’ And he would kind of just wave his glove behind him, you know, paying attention to the game but still acknowledging that we were there, it was great.”

Worthy reminisces about where he grew up.  “If you grew up in the Bronx…I was there until about 1962, and at that time, the Bronx truly was the melting pot that you hear people speak of…I never had the kind of prejudices or small minded thinking…I always lived in a metropolitan atmosphere where, or should I say cosmopolitan, all walks of life, people, old, young, you respected everybody, you treat everybody the same and, and you, you wanted to be treated with respect as well.  So, I grew up with that.”

As an adult, Worthy channels his energy into music, art, and rattling off interesting information and historical facts.  He was on the Westchester County Historical Society Board for about eight years in the early nineties, and he won the History Award when he was a student at Ossining High School.

In college at Colgate University, English and History were Worthy’s focus and were his best grades, which, admittedly, balanced out his “deficiencies” in math and science. Again, Worthy is chock full of knowledge, and ironically it was his research into ancient civilizations that taught him a lot about those subjects he felt he was deficient in.  Furthermore, Worthy minored in philosophy and religion, having taken courses in Islam and Buddhism, Confucianism, Judaism, and Christianity.

Worthy’s interest in music began when he watched The Beatles on TV in 1964, on the Ed Sullivan Show.

“It was a seminal moment for me as well as many other creative people.”, says Worthy.  In fact, Worthy grew up in a musical household.  His dad loved music like Harry Belafonte, Diana Washington, Peggy Lee, and Nat King Cole.

“He was a song guy.  So that’s what I kind of became, I loved the art of songs.”,

says Worthy about his father.  “Adolescence was the key.”, says Worthy. 

When Worthy came to Peekskill in 1977, he began writing songs for poets, playwrights and musicians and collaborated with them.  Worthy recalls visiting Peekskill in 1967 and going to a place called “Papa Bear’s Café.”, where there were musical acts of all sorts.

“I met a lot of musicians, some who are still my friends today that I met at Papa Bear’s Café.”  Says Worthy.

Getting back to the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show in 1964, Worthy was inspired to talk to his brother Mark, who was a year older than him, and they set up their very first acoustic guitars in their room, along with a single drum and cymbal.  There he and his brother began to practice and listen to records.  They would sing together and harmonize, just like The Beach Boys or the Jackson Five, who, of course, were bands consisting of family members. 

“So that was why their voices blended so well.” Says Worthy.

Worthy also had two younger sisters, both of whom played the flute for a few years.  Down the road Worthy invited his sister Patty to perform in a couple of bands with him that evolved into big band jazz.

“And she was a great improviser as well as she could read music.  So that encouraged me to deepen my music understanding.  So, I learned how to write musical charts, because I would listen to records and then know how to write the notation.”  Says Worthy.  Worthy took only about six months of guitar lessons. 

“The teacher was kind of leading us to a lot of these current pop songs that he knew of that were from the previous generation.  So, my brother and I, we wanted to learn rock and roll and so we learned the basics, how to read music… how to hold the guitar properly where the notes are.  And then we dropped out (of the guitar lessons), and the record players were our training school…and we would listen to those records over and over again, because you know, we wanted to have every aspect of every song be as accurate as we could, because, you know, my philosophy is that… you first learn the rules, then you can break them and manipulate things and evolve.”

As for the visual arts, Worthy confesses that it took many years for that to take a hold of him, due to a criticism about perspective from an art teacher in junior high school.  “So, I was completely discouraged from art and really stopped art for literally, probably about 30, 40 years and put all my energy into music, playing guitar, learning bass, drums, songwriting, singing, learning to sing lead as well as harmony.”

Worthy’s flair for the visual arts really took off while he was a student at Colgate, where he became the editor-in-chief of the school yearbook.  He picked up a 35 mm camera and that’s when he was bitten by the photography bug.  Currently he has photos on display at “The Artist Spot”, home to Antonia Arts at 925 South Street in Peekskill.  Worthy also has paintings exhibited at “The Artist Spot”, and his art show is entitled, “Peekskill’s April in Paris.” 

Steve Worthy’s show runs until April 30, with an opening reception from 2-8 at “The Artist Spot” on Saturday, April 15. Worthy will play music on this date as well as at his closing reception on April 30.

Again, Worthy is a historian and his interests and knowledge in ancient civilizations is an influence as to how he draws today. 

“As I started an intense interest in ancient civilizations that started in college, you know, Egyptian, Babylonian, other cultures in Greece, Rome.  I realized that people didn’t draw according to perspective back then.  They just put the images anywhere on the page or on the fresco on the wall.”

Worthy’s artwork consists of several studies done on the work of Jean Michel-Basquiat, whom one might also say drew with a hieroglyphic style.

In fact, when Worthy was thirteen years old and Basquiat just five, they played together and drew pictures in Ossining, NY, as they were family friends.  Worthy’s father had encouraged Basquiat’s father, Gerard, to attend night school and become an accountant as he had become, “as they (his parents). were sublimated because they grew up in a generation that wanted a secure income.” Says Worthy.  “Worthy’s mother became the choir director at their local Baptist church. 

Basquiat and his family would drive up from New York City to visit with them.

Worthy talks of having “a little reunion” with Basquiat’s foster mother, Nora Fitzpatrick, who had been involved with the family for over forty years.  “And yeah, she asked me…I think it was about 2019.  We had dinner together at a nice restaurant on 42^nd Street in NYC.  And, as we were leaving, you know, we were sharing and going through some memories and then as we’re getting ready to leave, Nora looks at me and goes, Steve, you wouldn’t happen to have any of those drawings!”  Worthy did not have any of those drawings to show, as many things are thrown out during a child’s adolescence.  However, Worthy has done several studies on Basquiat’s work which are in his show at “The Artist Spot” this month, and photos of some of Basquiat’s work, one of which includes the name of Steve’s father Woody, and the word, “Ossining.”

Worthy talks more about his life as an artist:

“I really got into storytelling. I had already been doing it in songwriting, and I decided to do storytelling in my painting…I want to tell a story because I think this is what makes us human…I’m saying to myself, what page of my story am I gonna create today?  That’s what I wake up for because I always want to be productive.  You know, I’m…not a spectator of life.”

For more info, please go to antoniaarts.org.