ABOUT STEPHEN
Stephen Coan, a landscape designer, horticulturist, artist, outdoorsman, and adventurer. Born in Philadelphia, PA. He’s a graduate of the Philadelphia College of Art, where he studied under Ben Lifson, Alida Fish, Peter Rose, Ron Walker, Gene Baguskas, and Al Ignari. After college, acting upon a suggestion from photographer Burt Corman, he apprenticed under Seymour Mednick, a disciple of Alexi Brodovich of the Bauhaus.
He has studied and is certified by Longwood Gardens in Landscape Design and Ornamental Horticulture Levels 1, 2, and 3 and is trained in ecological and sustainable landscape practices. He is the creator, owner, and caretaker of Ferret Hollow Gardens, a certified wildlife habitat garden through the NWF and pollinator habitat through the Xerces Society using many native and ornamental butterfly and bird attracting plants.
As an adventurer, he has taken his still and motion cameras throughout North America, Central America, the Caribbean and Europe. He's a retired semi-pro downhill mountain bike racer, an accomplished ice climber, rock climber, mountaineer, backpacker, sea kayaker and has also sailed and crewed on historic tall ships. One of his favorite places to climb was The Bugaboos in British Columbia Canada, "an amazingly beautiful place." He now trains on road-bikes doing long-distance endurance rides, does extreme day hikes climbing mountains into alpine conditions throughout the year loving the challenges of climbing in extreme conditions, ice and snow, and is a long-time ski boarder.
He has taught at the University of the Arts, been a guest lecturer at a number of other colleges and schools, and has been the mentor to numerous college students from around the country through college student intern programs. He had been on the Academic Advisory Board for the Photography Department of the Philadelphia Art Institute for many years and had contributed to the development of their four-year BFA program in photography.
He has lectured for a number organizations including: The Association of Professional Landscape Designers, - APLD, The Native Plant Socient of New Jersey, The Tri-County Sustainability Alliance, Audubon Sustainable Green Team & Oaklyn Green Team. Perkins Cemter of the Arts, Moore College of Art, University of the Arts, The Philadelphia Art Institute.
As a classically trained artist he has worked with many different mediums depending upon the concept and what the execution of the ideas call for from jewelry to clocks, hand built clay, woodworking, furniture, land art, landscape design, photo, film, computers, sound, sculpture, etc. For many years now he has been focusing on land art and landscape design with one of his favorite design projects being done for the Montessori Academy of a conceptual labyrinth and wildlife habitat that is based upon the sunrises & sunsets of the equinox's and solstice's and the passage of time.
He has received international recognition in both Communication Arts and Graphis and has received three Philly Gold Awards. He was an associate producer on an award-winning indie feature film "My Best Friends Wife" starring John Stamos, Michelle Monaghan, and Daniel London. One of his patrons writes, “Stephen Coan's 'works' capture the spirit of his subjects with style, substance and story that is uniquely his own.”
As a conceptual artist he has been working upon a large scale project that is based upon the melding of the different concepts and philosophies of Chaos Theory, “M” Theory or Super String Theory, and Quantum Mechanics and how they relate to the inception, organization, and presentation of ideas and thought. He has published a signed limited edition book titled “QuantuM Chaos” that contains the allegorical imagery of these concepts using clouds to represent the formative, mutable, and transitory nature of thought and existence.
His work has been represented nationally and internationally in many solo and group exhibitions and is contained in many public and private collections including the Kimmel Center in Philadelphia.
Click here for the fine photography projects of Stephen Coan