I was born on July 16, 1953 in Rockford, Illinois, where I have lived all but a few years of my life in the home of my parents. I graduated from Rockford West High School and briefly attended the University of Chicago before spending four years in the U.S. Navy as a quartermaster second-class on a frigate homeported in Athens, Greece. During my stint with the Navy I traveled throughout much of Europe and the Caribbean. I took up art when I was past thirty and am entirely self-taught. After a show in a Rockford cafe in 1988, I was picked up by the Phyllis Kind Gallery in Chicago. I have been exhibiting nationally and working full-time as a painter ever since. A bachelor, I live with my mother, brother, and sister.

Interests Vintage cinema, sci-fi/horror films of the '50's and '60's, classic, silent, foreign, and a few select recent films. I have a collection of about 2300 films on DVD's, not including complete recording of such old TV shows such as The Avengers, Outer Limits, The Saint, The Invaders, Secret Agent, Thriller, Honey West, and others. Some of my favorite films  are Carnival of Souls, The Passion of Joan of Arc, Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, Bucket of Blood, Angel and the Badman, Amelie, Adventures of Robin Hood, Emma, Enigma, Pumpkin, The Ninth Gate, Mesa of Lost Women,  and Vertigo.

Family and Ancestry My father, Norman Anderson was a bricklayer whose father, John MacKenzie Anderson was a mason contractor who emigrated to Rockford, Illinois, from Scotland (The Black Isle in the Northeast, where my ancestors were farmers). My mother, Margaret Blaisdell Anderson, is the daughter of artist, cartoonist, and illustrator E. Warde Blaisdell and the granddaughter of Eijah Whittier Blaisdell, Jr., who after coming to Rockford in 1853 from Vergennes, Vermont, was a newspaper publisher, organizer of the Republican Party in northern Illinois, lawyer, state legislator, and novelist.   Through  my maternal grandparents I can name as antecedents numerous  early settlers of New England and  many prominent  Puritan leaders.  These include Governor Thomas Dudley of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, Governor Wiliam Leete of Connecticut, Major General Robert Sedgwick, Reverend Joseph Hull, and Reverend John Lothrop.  Other notable ancestors are Edward Fuller and his family, who came over on the Mayflower, Susannah North Martin, who was hanged as a witch in Salem in 1692, and five ancestors who fought in the Revolutionary War.  My ancestry includes connections to English nobility and descents from King Edward III of England and his predecessors.   I have chronicled this genealogy on a series of pages accessed at  http://home.comcast.net/~stephander/site/

Past Lives I have remembrances of past lives that I believe have profoundly affected the course of my present life, my tastes and interests. These memories, like those of early childhood , are mostly vague, some vivid, but disjointed, maddeningly incomplete and affording no cohesive narrative. Nevertheless, I have been able to surmise the general conditions of four former lives. The earliest probably occurred in France somewhere, perhaps in the late 13th or 14th Century. I was born into the large family of a farmer, who because he felt I was insufficiently robust for farm work, but bright enough for some other occupation, apprenticed me to a tailor. I was successful in that craft and may have furnished raiment for members of the nobility. When I was well-established an advantageous betrothal to an attractive young woman was arranged. However, she eloped with or was abducted by a more powerful man, and no marriage took place. I believe this incident affected me deeply, as I have no recollection of ever being married subsequently. In the next life, probably in the 15th Century, most likely northern France, I was a monk and a scribe who copied classical texts. I may have authored a manuscript myself, most likely concerning ancient or exotic history. There is a long gap of memory until the third life, in Victorian England or Scotland. I owned a bookstore and lived above the shop in a small room that looked out on the high street. I feel I may have been confined there during a period of illness or infirmity. Also, at some point I was enamoured with a pretty young girl who wore a bonnet, but nothing came of it: she perhaps died or married another. The fourth and most recent former life, early 20th Century, was that of a butler on an English country estate, not a grand establishment, but a considerable one. I seem to have had charge of the place and competently supervised a staff of servants. The mistress, a tall, slender, elegant lady whom I adored appreciated me, but her husband, a gruffer sort, resented my lack of requisite servility -- and I was always fearful of being given the sack, despite being indispensible. I spent some time ediucating myself reading and I probably produced some works of creative writing, but it is unlikely that any of it was published. I was regarded by the other servants as being a strange and aloof character above my class.