Artist Profile: Sarah and Stephen DeLuca Open their Home to the Arts

After marrying in 1987, artists Sarah and Stephen DeLuca took a four-month cross country honeymoon, camping and painting along the way. 

Sarah spent much of the next decade working with non-profit organizations devoted to arts and education; most recently as Director of Constituent Relations at the Maryland Institute College of Art. 

At the same time, Stephen worked as a Trade Show Director for the largest handmade crafts market in the country, and eventually took full-time position at Random House.  

In 2007, Sarah became a full-time commissioned painter.  Her client base now ranges both nationally and internationally.  Her art has been exhibited in Maryland and New York City and is part of private collections all around the United States and Europe.

“My favorite medium is oil paint, because it is both endlessly forgiving and endlessly challenging. The paint itself is strong and lush, and the colors that can be created with it -- opaque, transparent, and everything in between -- are stunning," Sarah said.

Sarah is also inspired by a number of artists including Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot, Paul Gauguin, Henri Matisse, Pierre Bonnard and Edouard Vuillard, Edward Hopper, and Rackstraw Downes.

Sarah is a Partner Emeritus in the Off-Track Art artist cooperative, and teaches at Carroll Community College, Carroll Arts Center and Delaplaine Visual Arts and Education Center.  She also holds provides private instruction out of her home studio in Westminster’s Arts & Culture Overlay Zone, a zone she served on a taskforce to help create and implement.

Stephen continues to express his artistic visions through acrylics, alkyd and oil paint and sometimes sculpture and printmaking; choosing whatever medium he feels best suited to his current idea.  He also expresses his creativity through music composition and writing. 

“My husband is an amazing visual artist who also has written two novels, mostly on his very brief breaks at work!” Sarah said.

Stephen’s favorite artists are surrealists such as Belgian surrealist Paul Delvaux and late-19th Century symbolists. He is also inspired by the striking imagery in old black & white movies.

“Steve paints a mysterious inner world and does it with a sense of certainty and fun," Sarah said. "He amuses himself with his work and often laughs as he creates it. I paint what's in front of me, reacting really to the beauty of the external world, yet am utterly in the dark about what the piece is going to look like and how it will ever turn out! It's crazy and seemingly backwards.” 

Together, the couple runs a weekly life drawing studio at Carroll Arts Center. 

The first studio is an extension of the life session from Community Arts Project (CAP), the artist cooperative/ gallery that Stephen founded in Reisterstown in 1997.  Together, they also host monthly group meetings in their home with a select group of "Second Saturday Salons”.  

While art is an integral part of their work, hobbies and volunteer work, it is also remains just as present in their marriage as it was on their honeymoon.  

“It is so fun to be an artist married to an artist. We are each others toughest critics because we both believe that the other is the greatest artist we've ever known...in fact, I fell in love with Steve after seeing slides of his work. It helped that he's also handsome, smart, funny and nice!” Sarah laughed.

The DeLucas will both be participating in the 5th Annual Studio Tour on Dec. 3 and 4 and invite one and all to meet them and check out their works.  They will be showing art throughout their Victorian-era home, located at 180 West Main Street in the Arts & Culture Overlay Zone.  Sarah will be showing paintings and drawings and Steve will offer artwork, novels and multimedia installation. 

More information, pictures and details about Sarah’s commission work may be found at www.abelartist.com.

Also, songs, written works and artwork by Stephen DeLuca are posted and available at:   www.stephenpdeluca.com.