Steve Anderson

Steve Anderson

Wheaton, IL

I’ve been involved in kiting since I was a young teenager – flying a handful of store-bought kites, a single Rainbow stunt kite, and a few handmade kites.  Then there was a 25 year break from kite flying.  I returned to kite flying a bit over a decade ago when my son was eight.  A few years after that, I joined the 180Go! quad line team, and have traveled all over the US, Canada and Europe flying with the team.  I also fly performances with the No Knots kite team and occasionally with my son.

About seven or eight years ago, I started attending U-Make, and have since become an avid kite maker.  My work is building kites as art: sewing ripstop fabric, adding spars and fittings to create vibrant panels that fly. The work, rooted in childhood playfulness, explores color - combinations of hues, tints, shades, complements, and contrasts. Current pieces build sails via patchwork techniques, using many small individual fabric pieces, resulting in mosaics of flying color. I build works in series, exploring patterns through multiple color combinations as individual kites. I fly the series of kites together, presenting the combinations simultaneously, allowing viewers to see the interactions of colors and ever-changing patterns in the wind. 

For me, making and flying a kite is about being in the moment - a time when you focus on the kite, the wind, and the present time.

Recent awards include 1st Place – Sport Kites at the 2022 Cherry Blossom kite festival, and 1st Place, Cellular at the AKA convention in 2022.