Marla Starr Regan
Artist Bio
Marla began drawing at an early age and loved the peace that creating art brought her so much that making the decision to study art once she’d entered college was an easy one. Marla received her Bachelor of Fine Art in Art with a certification to teach art at all levels from Texas Tech University in 1996.
From there, her art journey led her to enter the dental industry as a dental lab technician, specializing in all-ceramic restorations. The perfect blend between art and science, Marla used her art background to create custom smiles for 27 years. After founding her own lab in 2019 and moving to New Bern in the spring of 2020, a longing to return to her first love brought her to make a decision to shift gears. Leaving the dental field behind to pursue art full time, she opened Bespoke Studio Art in the summer of 2024.
Marla has taught art to all ages from weekend classes for home school children to Beginning Drawing and Mixed Media Painting classes at Colorado Community College in Glenwood Springs, Colorado. She is a member of the Craven Arts Council, the Watercolor Society of North Carolina, and the American Watercolor Society. Marla is also a member of the Community Artists Gallery & Studios in downtown New Bern, where her art is displayed.
Exploring the dynamic aspects of watercolor and the challenge of Plein Air painting has been her most recent passion, and she looks forward to the journey of finding that harmonious balance between loose brush strokes and the finer details in her work.
In her free time, Marla enjoys spending time with her husband and fur babies. And, when she’s not with them, she can be found painting in her studio in downtown New Bern, where she has found the freedom to follow her heart at last.
Artist Statement
From my earliest years, I have loved the peace that creating art has brought into my life – a soothing respite from the bustling world outside of my inner landscape. As the years have progressed, finding the time to imagine and create has become my most cherished of “places” to be.