About

About the Project Artistry

Project Artistry is a blog about all the aspects of my life.  There is a little bit of everything in this blog, from family trips to my latest projects.   In addition to the blog you will find pages dedicated to specific areas such as Photography and Wood Working.   You will also find my latest tweets and links to my other websites.

The idea for Project Artistry is that it will become the jumping off point for my digital life.  Everything that I have going on online will be linked to or from ProjectArtistry.com

About Steven Ricks

My name is Steven Ricks.  I’ve been married to my wife Stephanie for 14 years and we have two sons, Andrew and Simon.  We moved to beautiful Lodi Wisconsin 10 years ago, from the great state of Texas where Stephanie and I where both born and raised.  Although we love Wisconsin we will always have Texas in our heart.

I started my career in the entertainment industry as a teen ager where I worked as a drummer in a small traveling circus called the Fossett Family Circus.  After the circus and a small stint as a kangaroo trainer, a majority of my teen years where spent working at Six Flags Over Texas in the Theatre Department doing sound and lighting.  When not working at the Park, I started my own company, Stage Tech International, where as a 17 year old I got a contract to provide the sound, lighting and staging for The Incredible Acrobats of China national tour.  This catapulted me into the business and entertainment world as I started doing work for the likes of the Dixie Chicks (when they were a local band), Ronnie Milsap, Lee Greenwood, and Ringo Star.  I also found a nitch doing technical direction for magic shows.  As a Technical Director I worked on such productions as Mark Wilson’s World of Magic, and the UK’s television show “The Best of Magic”, A Japanese Magic TV Series, and various theme park and cruise ship magic shows.

In my early 20′s I finally landed a full time gig with Vari-Lite the automated lighting company.  From 1991- 1993, I toured with bands such as Genesis, Paul McCartney, George Michael, and Def Leopard.  After the road, I moved into the Research and Development group managing the development of new products.  In 1998, the latest project was the development of automated architectural lighting product line.  The line was eventually sold to Electronic Theatre Controls (ETC) in Middleton WI.  Since both my wife and I worked for the the Architectural Division of the company, we were offered the chance to move to Wisconsin.  Even though we were seven months pregnant with our first son, Drew, we decided to make the move.  I am now a Product Development Manager, developing new products with a great team of people at ETC.

Over the years I have picked up many interests and hobbies.  The one that has stuck the longest is woodworking.  I started working wood when I was thirteen.  Mostly small projects.  When I bought my first house I built a majority of the furniture. (however, once I was married, most of the furniture moved out).  Later, I took a stab at building kitchen cabinets.  At the time, I thought they were really great, but as I look back now, I can see a whole lot that I would do different.  Now I spend most of my woodworking time building furniture.

In addition to woodworking, I am a Volunteer Fire Fighter for the Lodi Area Fire Department. I am  a drummer in my church band and I am the coordinator for the Lodi Community Action Team, where our mission is to affect change in our area to reduce teen access to Alcohol and Prescription Drugs.

I am currently a Blue Belt with my Son Andrew who is a Brown Belt in Karate.  My son Simon is just over a year old and as a family we love to camp, ride bikes, and hike.  We also do a little Geocaching from time to time.