Painter, sculptor, collagist, and assemblage artist John Kessel was born John Keith Cross in Charleston, West Virginia, on November 17, 1938. His mother would later remarry and her new husband, Glenvil Huron Kessel, would adopt John. He moved to Sacramento, CA in 1957 and five years later he moved north to Sonoma County. He attended the University of California, Berkeley, where he earned his BA in painting, and San Francisco State where he earned his MFA in sculpture. In 1970 he accepted a position as an art instructor at Santa Rosa Junior College, teaching Introduction to Art and Deign and Introduction to Watercolor. He exhibited throughout the Bay Area, including at the Oakland Museum, the San Francisco Museum of Art, Unicorn Gallery, Vorpal Gallery, and San Francisco State. He also exhibited at the California State Fair and Santa Rosa City Hall. He died in Fulton, CA on September 30, 1993, after a battle with cancer, and was buried in Sebastopol, CA. 

Selected exhibitions: 
1969: Atrium Gallery, Healdsburg; Unicorn Gallery, San Francisco
1977: California State Fair Art Show, First Place, Mixed Media division
1985: California Museum of Art, Luther Burbank Center for the Arts, Santa Rosa
1992: John Keith Kessel Retrospective, Santa Rosa Junior College