Story by Joe Shields | Art and Photos by Frederick Stivers
I don’t remember exactly how I first came across Frederick Stivers, only that once I did, his work stayed with me. When we spoke, I told him I suspected the introduction came by way of Dave Karczynski, whom I profiled in the Winter 2025 issue of this magazine.
If Karczynski is among the finest fly-fishing writers around, Stivers may be one of the most compelling sporting artists I’ve encountered. His work is quiet and deliberate, often rendered on discarded paper and found materials—objects most people would overlook, but which, in his hands, feel suited to fish, birds, dogs and wild places.
Stivers grew up in the prairie and corn country of central Illinois. His earliest memories were of weekends spent fishing, roaming fields and observing wildlife with his family. He discovered drawing early, a curiosity he traces back to his father.
“My dad wasn’t particularly good with words, and I remember him drawing pictures to help explain how engines work and other matters involving engineering,” Stivers said. “Those drawings left a big imprint on me. When I was in fourth grade, I won a scholarship to a local art school for figure-drawing classes.”
The young artist looked forward to entering his drawings in the annual state fair, which, in that bucolic region, represented the high-water mark of culture. In his dad’s old-school mind, he explained, the worst thing that might befall a kid growing up in the corn belt was art.
“At first, my old man wasn’t keen on me pursuing it,” Stivers said. “Then one day, when I was 11 years old and we were out and about, an attractive woman with a Ukrainian accent came up to me and said, ‘Hi Frederick.’ I was with my dad at the time and replied, ‘I didn’t recognize you with your clothes on.’ She was my class figure-drawing model. My old man smiled and was okay with me drawing after that.”
His early years were shaped not only by fields and rivers, but by a place most boys remember vividly: the local barbershop. Because his father had served in the Army, haircuts were a regular ritual, scheduled every two weeks, no exceptions.
“My favorite place on the planet was the barber shop,” Stivers said. “Good photography hung on the walls, and the barber had a braggin’ board displaying Polaroids of huge catfish he’d caught near the power plant. I loved flipping through the magazines stacked beneath it—Field & Stream, Outdoor Life and some more scandalous publications at the bottom. He had a glass-bottle Coke machine, too. What kid wouldn’t love it there?”
That barbershop, equal parts storytelling hub and shrine to small, unpolished obsessions, left a mark. It also stands in contrast to what has replaced it. We agreed that modern hair salons—sterile, curated and interchangeable—feel like the undoing of a certain kind of culture. That loss, and a resistance to over-polish, runs quietly through Stivers’ work.
For much of his life, Stivers said, that tension never really went away. He spent years trying—sometimes consciously, sometimes not—to make work his father could respect. Validation mattered. He wanted his art to prove something: that it was useful, disciplined and grounded in the real world. Even as his work evolved, that early need to earn approval shaped the way he approached it, favoring restraint over spectacle and substance over refinement.
“I’ve always enjoyed a good inside joke,” he said. “I pick a detail that only I know was there. If you take it too seriously, it becomes a commodity. It’s like a caddis hatch—savor the champagne bubbles and don’t overthink things. I never go back and correct my work. There’s a fidelity to creating art. I know people who document every detail, but I’d lose myself for days.”
Growing up, Stivers took on a string of odd jobs to help cover the cost of art supplies. He remembers ordering expensive French paper, only to find a ding or crease in the middle from packaging and shipping. At first, they felt like flaws. Over time, he came to see them differently: The imperfections weren’t problems to be fixed, but part of the story the work was already telling.
Stivers earned a bachelor of fine arts in graphic design and printmaking at Baylor University and later studied architecture at Washington University in St. Louis. While at WashU, he developed a deep admiration for the work of illustrators Jack Unruh and Eldridge Hardie, the inaugural Trout Unlimited Artist of the Year, known for his fishing, hunting and wildlife paintings.
Before emerging as a full-time artist, he spent a decade in the American West working as an architectural consultant, a period that also deepened his immersion in trout streams and high-country landscapes.
His path into the art world took an unexpected turn during a flight to New York City.
“I lived and worked as an architect in New Orleans for a while and began specializing in the finance side of the business,” said Stivers. “During a business trip to Manhattan to meet with investors, I planned on fishing the Salmon River. It was one of the bumpiest flights of my life, and to keep my mind off turbulence, I began sketching a cutthroat trout on the back of my boarding pass.”
The bamboo fly rod Stivers had wedged next to his seat, along with his sketching, caught the attention of the passenger sitting beside him, and his subsequent drawing sparked conversation.
“We talked about fly fishing, and he loved my sketch and asked if he could keep it. I gave it to him.”
His seatmate happened to be Peter Fong, an author who wrote about the first-ever scientific expedition from the Selenge River’s headwaters in Mongolia to Russia’s Lake Baikal.
“Several months later, I received a phone call from The Flyfish Journal. Peter Fong wanted me to illustrate his next story for the publication. That was an unexpected development, and I guess you could say the rest is history.”
Since then, Stivers’s artwork has appeared in a range of prominent sporting publications, including Covey Rise, Field & Stream, Garden & Gun, Project Upland, Southlands, Strung Magazine, Quail Forever and more. His illustrations were also included in the “Upland in America” anthology.
Stivers spends a lot of time on the water and in the field, so his materials are necessarily limited by travel. He incorporates pens, pencils and a small range of coloring materials—especially graphite, gouache and watercolor—to bring tarpon, bobwhite quail and gun dogs to life. The approach is as practical as it is expressive: repurposing surfaces like old envelopes, paper coffee cups, takeout bags, shotgun shell boxes, cow bones and the backs of parking tickets.
“I love quail hunting, especially in West Texas,” he said. “I’m now based near St. Louis and try to balance my creative life with family, field excursions, fly tying and fishing. I try to fly fish every Tuesday, and I love it when my kids join me.”
As for the future, Stivers is working on half a dozen larger oil paintings and landscapes at various stages of completion. He’s also finishing up a tarpon piece that he is donating to the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust for an awards dinner and is planning a trip to Italy.
When I asked him about awards, Stivers said getting published is his type of recognition. He also enjoys giving friends art.
“I love gifting drawings and paintings to friends,” he said, “especially after fishing or hunting with people. It’s all about sharing art as evidence that we were there, together.”
At a bare minimum, Stivers deserves a recycling award for his creative use of refuse.
Follow him on Instagram at @frederickstivers.
Joe Shields is the editor in chief of The Virginia Sportsman. He is a writer and communications executive who lives in New Orleans and Virginia. He is also an award-winning, gallery-represented artist whose work is found in private collections and galleries. Whether fly fishing or surfing, drawing or painting, he celebrates sporting life and culture in his narratives and art.
