Marty Stenerson

Marty Stenerson loved making art, listening to music and dancing, reading great novels and poems, practicing yoga, eating fresh vegetables grown in his garden, drinking and playing pool, telling stories and jokes, growing flowers and giving them to his lovers, sailing on the Great Salt Lake, walking in City Creek Canyon, and enjoying the treasured company of his enormous circle of friends and family. He punned and rhymed and swore and invented words just to keep language and life interesting, and his eyes lit up when he got a laugh or a rise out of you. He maintained an extensive vinyl library of jazz, blues, and rock and roll, and he refused to listen to synthesized music of any kind.
For many years, he captained brine shrimp harvesters, rising at 4 a.m. to drive out of the South Marina into the pitch dark, chatting on the radio with the spotter pilot overhead. He later became an extremely precise drapier who constructed exquisite window treatments and soft furnishings for the best homes in Utah.
Marty started drawing as soon as he could hold a crayon and never stopped. His thousands of paintings and drawings of nudes, boats, boxers, and musicians featured dynamic compositions, exacting draftsmanship, and powerful contrasts of color and form. Over time, his art became more fluid and improvisational, and he remarked that the most important and difficult part of a canvas was the space between two figures.
Richard Martin Stenerson was born in Elkhart, Indiana on June 10, 1964, and died in Salt Lake City, Utah on May 13, 2022. He is survived by his son Ryan Taylor, his sisters Kara DiOrio, Sarah Chupp, Betsy Virgil, his mother Katherine DiOrio, and his father Sterling Stenerson. A private ceremony honoring his life was held on May 21st in Salt Lake City. In lieu of flowers and in recognition of Marty’s care for people facing homelessness, donations to organizations including the Fourth Street Clinic and The INN Between are encouraged.