Photo by Eric Taunton Starnes Media
Steve Skipper, internationally renowned artist, speaks to the audience about his path towards Christianity at the Dogwood Breakfast at Vestavia Country Club on April 20, 2022. Photo by Eric Taunton.
Painter Steve Skipper talked about his journey toward faith and his career as an accomplished artist at the Vestavia HIlls Dogwood Prayer Breakfast on April 19.
Skipper is the first African-American painter to have art sanctioned by NASCAR, PGA and the University of Alabama, among several other professional sport organizations.
He also has had art featured in several sports halls of fame throughout the country.
Skipper said he started from very humble beginnings.
He grew up in Rosedale in a dysfunctional household, with his mother and father constantly arguing, he said.
He said he didn’t feel like had a family so he joined the Crips, a national gang organization.
“They presented themselves to me as the greatest family that I would ever have,” Skipper said. “They used terms like ‘we’ve got your back’ or ‘we’ll take a bullet for you’ and all that kind of stuff. At the time, I was about 13 years old. I felt like I really needed this.”
After he was “jumped in,” or initiated, at 13, he started collecting debt money for the Crips at 15, he said.
He was effective in that role, he said, being trained to fight by Green Berets and Navy SEALs.
One day when he was 17, he was celebrating robberies the gang had conducted with several gang members in Rosedale when a lifeguard he didn’t know very well started talking to him about Christianity, Skipper said.
“There’s a swimming pool right by where we were sitting and there’s a lifeguard near the swimming pool. We used to call him ‘Big Mike,’” Skipper said. “Mike knew me but I didn’t know him that well but for some strange reason, there were 13 of us sitting down at the park table, he called out my name and said ‘Steve Skipper, you need to be saved.’”
After talking with Mike about his faith, Mike called his pastor at the time to come and talk to him further about Christianity, Skipper said.
When he arrived at his pastor’s church, he originally didn’t plan on staying the whole service but he was captivated by the sermon, he said.
“I went to the church and heard a sermon. This was no ordinary sermon,” Skipper said. “He talked about how God was concerned with every aspect of my life. He was concerned with the dysfunction that took place in my home…He was concerned about my future.”
He later became a Christian, left his gang and learned how to paint, Skipper said.
When he became an adult he started selling printings, painting one of his first pieces for Florida State University, he said. He became known as one of the top sports artists in the world and has artwork in every sports hall of fame in the country, Skipper said.
A full-length documentary film that debuted in November 2020 tells Skipper’s story and how he broke down barriers of racism through his fine art career.
His uncle was an “exceptional” drawer, Skipper previously told The Homewood Star, but he never understood why his uncle didn’t pursue drawing professionally. Then when Skipper was older, he realized it was because Black people couldn’t pursue art as a profession.
“I would always notice my uncle would draw something very beautiful, but when he got through with it, he would look very sad,” Skipper said.
At 17, he was at football practice in the pouring rain when he looked over at the high school. There was a light on in the art department. That’s when he had an epiphany, and he decided he wanted to be an artist, he said.
Skipper was a “starving artist” for years. He remembers his mother telling him to “get a real job.”
When he sold a painting for $10,000 to Derrick Thomas, a former player on the University of Alabama football team, he took the check to his mother and she said, “You’ve got a real job, son.
Skipper is now the only artist officially recognized by the University of Alabama and has created commemorative works for each of the team’s national football championships.
