Stock Schlueter grew up in the Burnt Ranch and Willow Creek areas near the Trinity River in the 950s, when, as he says, “outdoor activities were a way of life for us — rockhounding, bottle digging, hiking, backpacking, hunting, fishing, growing our own fruits and vegetables. We rode all over Northern California, my brother and I, in the back of a pickup truck. It’s not hard to figure out why it was a natural for me to love the landscape and want to share it in my art.”
Schlueter became interested in art early. He says his parents dabbled in art; he picked up one of their how-to-paint books, and it stuck. He studied fine arts at the College of the Redwoods and at the University of Northern Colorado, where he earned a bachelor of fine arts degree in 1971.
He at first worked with his father, felling timber. In 1975, he started to focus on painting and has been pursuing this career ever since. His subjects are landscapes, rivers, and rural scenes; his method is plein air. Schlueter says that what he enjoys most about the process of painting on location is “the direct relationship with the time, the place, the light, the subject, and the puzzle of how to get them all to dance together to give an honest impression of a single event in this life.”
The Trinity River was his home water and is the subject for many of his paintings. “I was raised in its waters, swimming and fishing and spending time alongside. When I paint the river, my mind races with nostalgic visions of youth. I love any river. A river is ever constant in its journey to the sea. To me, it is the crown jewel of nature, making life itself possible.”
“We started fishing the small trout streams with willow twigs and a little line and a hook as soon as we could walk. Our many backpacking trips revolved around high-mountain lakes and the fish they held. We even packed in a small rubber boat and trolled a single fly behind it. Salmon fishing on the Trinity was insane before the massive f lood of 1964. And there is nothing like the wrath of a big steelhead breaking the surface.”
Another stream that he spent time near is the Salmon River, a 19.6-milelong tributary to the Klamath River in western Siskiyou County. “I remember camping along the Salmon River when I was a kid. The pavement ended at Hoopa and became a one-lane dirt road all the way down the Trinity, up the Klamath, to the mouth of the Salmon at Somes Bar. We started hunting and camping near the headwaters of the Salmon. It became an annual pilgrimage for us.”
Based now in Eureka with his wife Rachel (also a painter), Schlueter states, “After so many years of painting, it is enough just to paint. The work becomes a byproduct of a way of life. Observation and the act of painting are their own statement. Creating something of beauty and sharing it just might do some good in this world.”
In 2016, Stock and Rachel went on the road for a year. As Schlueter says, “We drove to places so we could paint, when and where we wanted. Our trip took us up through Oregon, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming, then down through Colorado, New Mexico, and Arizona, Texas, and across the Gulf out to Florida and back. Not only did I paint, but I fished. When you speak the universal language of fishing, it is easy to make new friends anywhere.”
