Nancy Stark
Painting History in a Lavish New Light

Written by Elizabeth Parsons
Photography by Skip Higgins

Twenty-four years ago, a newly married Nancy Stark accompanied her husband Doug on what would become a weekend tradition: train watching in the Charlottesville train yard. Her husband had long been an avid train-watcher, but when recalling the afternoon, Stark waves a hand dismissively. “What did I think?” she laughs. “Well, I was bored.”

Fast forward to present day and that will come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Stark’s work. She has been creating watercolors of trains consistently since 1998.  She has painted more than 40, ranging in size from 12” x 12” to over 28” x 80” in size. The bane of her weekends has turned into a fascination.  “When I see a train now, I want to get out my paint,” says Stark. “I’ve painted chairs, flowers, and other things, but it keeps coming back to them,” the artist shrugs.

The about-face is not surprising for a woman who “sees the journey of life like a pinball game”—every choice you make diverts you in a new direction, and that direction, in turn, leads to a whole new set of choices and opportunities, and so on. The world offers infinite combinations of possibilities; we are constantly at a new and potentially significant crossroads, whether we realize it or not.

Stark was at one such crossroads in 1983, just after the South New Jersey native gave birth to her third child. At the time, her path seemed fairly certain: she had earned a degree in psychology and education from Lafayette College, and had relocated to Charlottesville in 1975 to attend graduate school, where she received her Masters of Education, met her husband-to-be, and started a family. Stark took off time to raise kids, and planned to be a teacher, which she did for years.

Stark isn’t sure why she began painting. She was 31—eight years into marriage, with a 3 month-old son at home—when she first picked up a brush. Unlike many artists, she doesn’t recall any burning drive to create, adding, “I just wanted to do something for myself.”

In the years that followed, Stark immersed herself in art. She progressed quickly, subsequently winning dozens of awards and accolades—including first place in watercolor at the 2005 Sidewalk Art Show; the Airfloat System Award at the National Watercolor Society Show in 2006; and most recently, third place in watercolor in the National Jury Show at Gallery West in Alexandria. She has held solo shows in Abington at the Arts Depot Gallery, the Augusta Medical Center in Fishersville, and will hold another at the O. Winston Link museum throughout the month of March. Stark’s paintings fetch anywhere from $350 to $1,500, depending on the size. She is an active member of the Signature 9 Gallery in Roanoke’s Old Southwest district (the Stark family moved here in 2000).

Stark was recently interviewed for a twelve-page color article that appeared in Watercolor magazine (“Getting Down the Essentials,” Winter 2007). Apart from the occasional workshop, the artist is self-taught.

 “I found my calling,” she confirms.

Why trains? Although Southwest Virginia has a long and important railroad legacy, Stark is drawn less to this context than to recreating the intricate and unusual beauty she sees in industrial forms. She began her first train series in 1998, 25 years after her first reluctant train-watching experience, and 15 years after she first picked up a brush. “The sun was bright and casting strong shadows, and just the patterns and shapes caught my eye. We went and got the camera
and we took close up shots of the stairs and the railings.”

Shadow, shape, and texture, in fact, are the painter’s muses. Especially important is the negative space between forms. In many of Stark’s works, the negative space becomes the focal point; the structures themselves fade into the background.

“It’s almost like a jigsaw puzzle for me, putting the shapes together to make an interesting composition.”

The artist begins by photographing a potential subject. In both photo and subsequent painting, Stark zooms in to create a particular frame: in “Primarily Trains,” it encompasses four rungs of a ladder that work their way up the edge of a car, and the shadows that linger beneath. In “Riding the Rails,” the horizontal piece shows three wheels hugging a rail, and the intricate latticework of machinery that weaves between them. In both of these pieces, the rest of the train is cropped out. “I get to control where the viewer looks,” says the artist.

Control, in fact, is a notion with which Stark often tinkers. She sees each painting as a journey and a process. She opens herself to the unexpected; she wants the “paint to do its thing. I don’t have a preconceived idea of what a painting will look like. I have no idea what color will go where. To me, that would be boring.”

“My early trains started out as very representational, true to form and color.” Today, it’s as if Stark relinquishes control to her art—she lets the painting evolve into what “it wants to be.” One step in the process is pre-treating her surface with gesso, a paste that hardens into a gritty coating. Working on the textured surface makes the outcome even more uncertain; “It takes more control away from me.”

In the studio, “I like to throw paint, to make a mess
Sometimes I fling it. I get lost in the process, and I don’t worry about the outcome.”

The painter draws a meaningful parallel between the evolution of each painting and the evolution of her life as an artist. “I often ask myself, ‘what if?’” she says thoughtfully. “What will happen if I put this color here?” or, “What if I hadn’t been out watching trains that day?” Stark feels her work would have been different had she pursued an art career earlier. Now in her fifties, she is considering a formal degree to see what avenues open up—to see where the pinball rolls.

But it’s not about regret. Stark loves her family, and cherishes her years as a teacher and mother. But as her path makes evident, it’s never too late to change directions. When I ask what she’d advise those considering the creative life, she sucks in a breath, and her eyes widen. “I say go for it. It’s the most rewarding thing in the world.”

You can see Nancy Stark’s work throughout the month of March at the O. Winston Link museum at 101 Shenandoah Avenue in downtown Roanoke. Stark is also a member of the Signature 9 Gallery, at 1309 3rd street in Old Southwest. The gallery is open Wednesday through Friday, 12 to 5 pm and Saturday 10 am to 4 pm, or by appointment; hanging until the end of March is “A Little Dab of Red.” Learn more about Nancy Stark at http://www.nancystarkart.com/. Be sure to visit the gallery during Art by Night, the first Thursday of every month, from 5 to 8 pm; the gallery provides a free limo service between locations (call 540.342.0703  for details). Stark is one of three Signature 9 artists to be recently featured in a national arts magazine: see also “Making It Personal” for an article on Sandi D’Allesandro  in the February 2007 issue of  Watercolor Magic, and  “Twenty Emerging Artists” in the Fall 2006 issue of Watercolor for a piece on Jane Iten.

Posted: March 1st, 2007 under Visions.
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~Elizabeth Parsons’ passion for culture and the arts has earned her a degree in Anthropology and stamps on her passport from places as diverse as Ecuador, Turkey and the European Union. Recently working as a Writer and Event Planner for the Grammy Music Awards in San Francisco, CA, she returns to her hometown of Roanoke to pursue her M.F.A./Creative Writing at Hollins University. Elizabeth can be contacted at 540.345.6300 or elizabeth@citymagazineonline.com.