*Stan excelled in art, drawing and modeling clay from an early age, majoring in art in High School (as much as you can in HS), winning many awards, and voted “Best Artist,” in his graduating class. He went on to major in art at Western Michigan University. Studying art at the university level in the 1970s — a time when abstraction expressionism was the fashion, it was difficult to find traditional art instruction, but Stan took as many life-drawing classes as he could. One oil painting instructor, a portrait painter from NYC, told him, “If you really want to be an artist, get out of here (college) and go paint.” To this day, Stan believes it is the very act of painting that is the best instructor, to paraphrase one of his heroes, the Spanish painter, Joaquín Sorolla y Basstida. In the mid-1990’s, Stan traveled out to paint on Monhegan Island, where he met resident artist (and musician), Don Stone (1929 - 2015), who became his most important mentor and a dear friend. Years later, when Stone was no longer driving, Stan volunteered to drive him to gallery openings where they were showing together and to Master Classes Stone was teaching. It was a great experience for Stan as Stone told him lots of stories about the painters in his life and things they taught him, including Paul Strisik, Emile Gruppé and Aldro Hibbard and others. That lineage was important to Stan: Don had driven Aldro Hibbard to teach at the MFA school, in Boston, when Hibbard no longer drove. That kind of education you cannot buy. Stan has taught numerous painting workshop on Monhegan Island, Tuscany and in the South of France and has taught a master class at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he taught courses for 7 years. Today Stan and his wife live in York Maine, on the York River, surrounded by conservation land and farms. He travels frequently to France, Italy, and Cuba for inspiration to sketch and paint.