Meet Stephanie Caracalas | visual artist and creative educator

We had the good fortune of connecting with Stephanie Caracalas and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Stephanie, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Being self employed makes work/life balance look a little different to me than to most who work 9-5 corporate jobs. Working for myself has given me the freedom and flexibility with my time. Learning to balance and manage the demands of my work time vs. my personal time, lets me be more decisive to where and when I spend each of these. It may mean working evenings or weekends, but it could also mean taking a vacation whenever I want.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
I started my professional artistic journey in 1998 by establishing my creative outlet business, FreakyPeas. Since then, I have participated in a number of collaborative projects, exhibited work throughout the country, and I have become an effective creative educator. I am primarily self taught and have my own approach and definition of art. I believe in taking risks and believe inspiration can come from everywhere you look. At the moment my focus is on painting custom pet portraits. I have been producing original pieces for my customers for about 4 years. My style has evolved from painting simple pop art, colorful “Andy Warhol” style portraits to a more realistic look but I still love to use color.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
A favorite place I like to bring people when visiting is Richardson’s, Cottonwood Art Festival. Located inside a beautiful and shady park, they feature live music, adult beverages and lots of fabulous art vendors. The venue always highlight an artists by featuring them on their marketing material, which, as an artist, I find pretty cool. This is my favorite place to browse art and listen to live music. You can definitely spend the whole day eating, drinking, looking at art, and listening to good music.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
I don’t want to sound cliche but my shoutouts are to my mom, husband and close friends. My mom is an artist and from an early age has always been creative with me. My husband has been my support team/cheerleader throughout my crazy endeavors and my close friends have always offered their shoulders to cry on when things become too stressful and overwhelming.

Other: linktr.ee/freakypeas