"When I grow up, I want to be an artist."

Stefanie Stark said those words as child when asked the common question, What do you want to be when you grow up? Surrounded by art at home in Washington, DC and nurtured by a mother whose appreciation for beauty ran deep, Stefanie's love for creating started at an early age. Drawing and painting were favorite activities of hers, and art was her favorite subject in school. Her parents collected original art and her mother, who had studied art history and wrote a column on art and antiques, was masterful at arranging a constant flow of fresh flowers in their home. Stefanie often watched her mother arrange the blooms just so, recognizing that this was her mother's way of creating art. When Stefanie left home and was decorating her first apartment on a budget, she joked with her mother that she was "ruined" - the posters she could afford didn't compare to the original art she'd lived with and absorbed over the years, and she knew the difference.

Stefanie's passion to create never went away, but it took many years before creating as an adult became a major focus.

In 2010, not long after her mother died, she found herself needing a complete break. Leaving a husband and two small children behind, she went on a solo week-long retreat. In a meditation class, a teacher asked Stefanie to write a letter to herself stating something she wanted to do, assuming anything was possible. The teacher collected the letter and said she'd mail it to Stefanie in six months. It arrived in Stefanie's mailbox as promised, and it read: "Buy an easel and paints."

Stefanie bought an easel and paints, but it took several more years more before she sat down in front of a canvas. Young kids and life in general seemed to get in the way. Finally, in the spring of 2017, Stefanie began taking abstract painting classes and hasn't looked back since. She now thinks about painting every day and paints whenever she can. When she paints, she gets lost for hours in the process, ignoring hunger pains or bedtimes because the painting needs more and her hands, heart and thoughts are with it.

Stefanie primarily uses acrylic paint to create abstract works on canvas. She sometimes incorporates loose, free oil pastel scribbles into these paintings. Key to her process is layering and blending colors, and taking paint away by rubbing or scratching, revealing layers beneath. She creates various textures by using different stroke types and thicknesses of paint - sometimes it is abundantly creamy, and other times it is watered down and sheer, allowing for purposeful drips. Gestural, organic strokes may sit beside precise and meticulous ones.

Stefanie is inspired by the colors she sees around her, in every setting. Flowers in their natural state as well as in arranged bouquets are a frequent inspiration, and she sometimes wonders if she is recalling her mother through these flowers. At other times, Stefanie paints more geometrically, using circles, rectangles and lines to form irregular patterns. These works are sometimes reminiscent of architectural elements, such as windows, doors or buildings. Stefanie also creates mixed media collages using found papers, acrylic and other mediums. She likes creating different types and styles of art using different mediums and approaches. Whatever she creates, emotions such as love, loss, longing, contentment and/or joy find a way from within Stefanie to her artwork.

Early on, Stefanie felt how art and beauty can enrich life, and her hope is that others will look at her paintings and get lost in them, as she does.