Born John Jay Steensma in Moscow, Idaho on December 8, 1941, the eldest son of John and Oliva Steensma moved to Seattle to attend the University of Washington School of Art in 1959 where he studied with dean Walter F. Isaacs, along with painting professors Spencer Moseley, Robert C. Jones, Fred Anderson, and George Tsutakawa. After graduating, he met and studied briefly with Northwest School artist Morris Graves.
Leaving Seattle for New York after the U.W., he worked briefly as a collections intern at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Returning in 1965, he taught at Cornish College of the Arts in Seattle. While still a U.W. student, he won a prize in the Northwest Printmakers Annual at the Henry Art Gallery (U.W.) and First Prize in painting at the Pacific Northwest Arts and Crafts Fair in Bellevue, Washington (Richard Anuskiewicz was the juror).
Despite the onset of manic-depressive illness which plagued him until his death in 1994, Steensma kept up a frenetic work schedule which resulted in thousands of works on paper, canvas, and related materials. Constantly flirting with the imagery of the major figures of the Northwest School (Guy Anderson, Graves, Mark Tobey, and Kenneth Callahan), Steensma turned his homages into a highly personalized style which became a potent vocabulary of subjective symbols while at the same time bordering on satire or parody of the older artists he so loved. By the end, he had turned to abstraction as a way of emptying out or purifying recognizable imagery.
Because of illness, he did not exhibit between his first show at Francine Seders in 1976 and his subsequent "come-back" at Jackson Street Gallery, Seattle, in 1985. After that, attention and recognition came quickly, almost making up for the years of poor health and intermittent institutionalization at Western State Hospital in Steilacoom, Washington. Invitations to participate in prestigious museum exhibitions followed with appearances at the Seattle Art Museum, Whatcom Museum of History and Art, Cheney Cowles Memorial Museum, and at "Eccentric Satellites" during the 1986 Bumbershoot Festival, curated by Kangas. Out-of-town gallery exhibitions in Chicago, San Diego, and Portland, Oregon were complemented by additional Seattle shows at MIA Gallery, Mazey Hickey, and Carolyn Staley--Fine Prints.
Another memorial exhibition was held at the Henry Art Gallery in 1995 and concentrated on small-scale works. Museum holdings include Smithsonian Institution; University of Oregon; Tacoma Art Museum; Seattle Art Museum; Cheney Cowles; and Humboldt Cultural Center, Eureka, California.
