Hermiston artist Steve Winn, 68, has toured with the Greatful Dead, experimented with drugs, married his soul mate and worked his way up to a top position in a paper factory.

He uses his storied past to create bright and colorful works of art that businesses have purchased to use as signs or that individuals have hung in their homes.

For the most part, Winns paintings portray circular spiraling images or scenes from mountain settings. He uses brightly colored and black paints to create psychedelic images that reflect his past.

A weird kid

Winn said a love of the imagery in comic books may have inspired him to paint some of the images that he does today.

I used to read Marvel comic books as a kid, he said. I was really into Dr. Strange.

When he was 10 years old, Winn came up with the alter ego name Xanthron, which he later used as a pen name during the beginning of his painting career.

Its so embarrassing, but I?did it, he said.

To become Xanthron, Winn recalled finding a black poodle skirt that he turned into a cape by stripping the ruffles off the bottom and ripping out the seam on the side, leaving only a button at the top. He then wrote Xanthron on the back with model car gold paint.

I was kind of a weird kid, he said.

Winn would ride all over Portland on his bicycle with his cape flying in the wind.

Occasionally I would get in trouble by the police, he said. They would see my purple bicycle and a streak of a black cape and pull me over.

Growing up

Winn said he was pretty shy as a youth and spent most of his time by himself.

His mom also worked a lot, and he split his time between living in Portland and in Pendleton, where his dad owned wheat fields after his parents divorce.

When he started painting in high school, it created an opportunity to meet new people.

I was always very popular in art, he said.

Winn created oil paintings and frequented Cannon Beach, where he conjured up some watercolor paintings of the nearby rock scenes.

I sold quite a few of them, though I was never really good at the real scenes, he said.

A different lifestyle

After high school, Winn said he became a roadie with the Greatful Dead.

A buddy of his was friends with author Ken Kesey, who wrote One Flew Over the Cuckoos Nest and also experimented heavily with LSD?at that time, Winn said.

Kesey used to hold Kool-Aid acid tests, where Kesey and others threw LSD into a batch of Kool-Aid and experimented with the substance.

He said that while experimenting with LSD, it was important to have music so that people wouldnt freak out.

They needed a band for those, Winn said. And the Grateful Dead was one of those bands.

Winn said he was asked by his friend to join the band as a roadie, and he toured all up and down the West Coast, from Northern California to Seattle.

We partied with the Greatful Dead, Janice Joplin, Quicksilver and all those guys, he said. It was definitely a fun time. I didnt really think anything about it. They were my friends.

He and his buddies lived at 710 Ashbury St. in San Francisco, which is one block from the famous Haight Street that housed hippies and many famous musicians and artists.

Everybody was good, nice people, he said.

Winn said he eventually moved out of San Francisco because he needed to get a real job, but his love for bright colors and the psychodelic he developed during his counter-culture years, would heavily influence his artwork in the future.

Mainstream life

Winn said he moved to Seattle for a job at Boeing where he trained to be an airplane electrician with a couple of friends. It was at Boeing he said he met his soulmate, best friend and eventual wife of almost 50 years, Dorece.

I saw a cute little girl in the corner, he said. She was a riveter.

Winn said they started dating, got married.

She was the one that got me painting again, he said.

Winn said he hadnt seriously painted in years, but after marrying his wife, he started on the old hobby once again.

The two later moved to Hermiston, where they bought a piece of land and designed and built the house in which he still lives. Four years ago, Dorece had a stroke and passed away.

I felt like I lost my better half, he said, tearing up. I had lost my best friend.

Winn said he really started painting regularly after she died, which helped him to heal and get over the loss of his wife, though he still misses her very much.

Some of his paintings contain swirls of bright colors and also include psychadellic images and patterns reminders of his days as a roadie. His paintings hang on the walls of his home, and he recently dedicated a room to his artistry.

Winn said a lot of his paintings have a polyurethane coating, which is the same substance that is used to coat a gym floor. The substance also makes the paintings really durable, he said.

He said he also likes to paint using unique objects and mediums such as chopsticks and pin-striping paint.

He typically paints on large rectangular boards, although he sometimes uses canvases.

Despite suffering a stroke a couple of years ago, Winn hasnt let that hinder his artwork.

He recently participated in this years Hermiston ArtWalk, displaying his bright and mesmerizing works of art under a tent at the end of Main Street.

He said his paintings sell for anywhere between $100 and $300.