Stan excelled in art, drawing and modeling clay from an early age, winning many awards and voted “Best Artist” by his high school graduating class. He went on to major in fine art at Western Michigan University. Studying art at the college 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, said “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 teacher, to paraphrase one of his heroes, Spanish painter, Joaquín Sorolla y Basstida. In the mid-1990’s, Stan traveled out to paint on Monhegan Island where he met resident artist, Don Stone (1929 - 2015), who became his most important mentor and a dear friend. In later years, when Stone was no longer driving, Stan volunteered to drive him to gallery openings where they were showing together and to Master Classes that 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 had 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. In 2004, Stan won the Marine Environment Wildlife Award for "Best Depiction of Wildlife in its Natural Habitat" at the 25th Annual International Marine Masters Art Exhibition at the Museum at Mystic Seaport, Mystic, CT. Stan was awarded a month-long residency in 2003 by Les Amis De La Grande Vigne, in Dinan France (Brittany), where some of his paintings are now housed in the Museum's permanent collection. He was invited to return in 2019, as a participant in the 30th Anniversary Exhibition celebrating the residency program at the Museum. In 2002, Stan was awarded Second place in International Artist magazine's "Seascapes, Rivers and Lakes Challenge" for his painting of Gull Rock - Monhegan, which was featured in June/July 2002 (Issue #25). Stan has taught numerous painting workshops on Monhegan Island, Tuscany and in the South of France and taught a master class at the New Hampshire Institute of Art, in Manchester, New Hampshire, where he taught courses for 7 years. His paintings have been featured in The Centennial Exhibition at The Salmagundi Club, in 2018, and in American Art Collector, Southwest Art, International Artist Magazine and other publications. Stan and his wife, Tammy, live in York, ME by the upper reaches of the York River, surrounded by conservation land and farms. They travel frequently to France, Italy, and Cuba for inspiration to sketch and paint.