During his tour of duty, Stevenson was assigned as illustrator for the morale magazine "All Hands" and art director for the magazines "Naval Training" and "Training Bulletin".

Afterwards, Stevenson continued his education at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Art and the University of Pennsylvania.

His formal education complete, Charles Stevenson found work in a series of art-related jobs far from his dream of life as an artist - a stained glass window designer at a factory in Patterson, New Jersey, an art therapist in a mental hospital in Hartford, Connecticut and an advertising artist for department stores in Dallas and New York City, as an independent muralist and portrait painter in San Francisco.

During his last four years in San Francisco, Stevenson created and ran Stevenson Graphics, a successful advertising art agency.

The bare bones of Charles Stevenson's life to this point conceal a cultured, gracious and generous man with a gift for friendship, whose interest in myth, history, poetry, music and theatre and whose exploration of hermetic philosophy and sacred geometry were part of a life-long search for the spiritual within the mundane.

In 1961 Stevenson closed the San Francisco chapter in his life.

In Charles Stevenson's words, "Years ago a fortuneteller told me that I had a chance to remake my entire life and I said, 'What I'd really like to find is someplace like Carmel or Monterey was, when all the artists and writers were there.'

"And she said, 'Mendocino!'

"I put everything in the back of my old Buick and came to this wonderland, and found that the rumors were a little off. The town was then pretty sad-seeming because half of the buildings were boarded up and almost every house in town needed paint or something done to it.

"The reason I stayed was because of Bill and the Art Center. We had it in our hearts that our purpose was somehow to revive this town and make it a center for art.. I remember praying that something would happen, that all those houses would get painted and fixed up again and that the town would not be trashed with awful architecture. And we worked hard to make it happen. To attract people. And they came.

"It was my longtime dream to be part of a golden age of art. What happened in Mendocino gave us the feeling that we could influence the course of events by our dreams and our visions. The people who came helped complete our connection with the arts and I think we did have a golden age."

Dorr Bothwell was in Mendocino; she introduced her former student to her protégé Bill Zacha who looked at Stevenson's work and offered him a solo exhibit at the Bay Window Gallery and a job teaching at the Mendocino Art Center.

Charles Stevenson's fine academic background, the years of practical application of his skills, his natural talents and creative vision made him an especially inspiring teacher. He taught at the Mendocino Art Center for almost forty years, guiding generations of young artists.

The Art Center's Stevenson Studio was the gift of his parents, Mildred and Charles Marchant Stevenson II.

Inspired by Leonardo da Vinci's use of the golden mean or golden ratio, Charles Stevenson worked in serigraphy, gouache, watercolor and acrylics. For his large format acrylic paintings Stevenson preferred a surface of gessoed cheesecloth on masonite or wood on which he created dynamic portraits, landscapes and visionary work shot through with flashes of impish humor.

The subjects of Charles Stevenson's work reflect his spiritual and philosophical explorations, his many visits to Japan, England, Egypt, Greece, Italy and France, especially Paris and Monet's gardens at Giverny, as well as places and people closer to home, for example, the headlands of Mendocino and such lifelong friends as Bill and Jennie Zacha, with whom he shared a passion for community and for theatre.

Bill and Jennie's daughter Lucia remembers, "I think I first met Charles - Chuck is what we all called him then - in the studio when I was six or seven. I know I was seven when he painted my portrait. He was magical. I was supposed to be picking flowers and there I was, out in a field with all these wild mustard weeds, yet when he was finished I was picking beautiful flowers."

Between 1974 and 1984, Stevenson designed the magnificent stained glass angel windows at the Episcopal Church of Saint Michael's and All Angels, Fort Bragg, California.

The artist's murals can still be seen at the Methodist Church of the Good Shepherd in Richmond, California and at the non-denominational Piedmont Community Church in Piedmont, California, where Stevenson also designed the altar cross for the children's chapel.

In the 1980s, Charles Stevenson invited gifted young Mendocino painter Matt Leach to collaborate with him; they formed Stevenson/Leach Studios.

Like his friends the Zachas, at least equal to his artistic gifts, Stevenson had great generosity of spirit.

Time, talent and resources, Charles Stevenson gave unstintingly to his community, sponsoring exhibitions, concerts and plays, making grants to local artists, musicians and writers as well as giving the Mendocino Art Center large donations of money and making the Art Center a spectacular gift of land in the heart of the village, with the stipulation that low-cost housing for artists be built on the property.

Stevenson expressed his love for theatre both onstage as an talented actor and behind the scenes, directing plays and designing opulent sets for productions at the Mendocino Art Center's Helen Schoeni Theatre and for the Gloriana Opera Company.

In 1994 The Mendocino Art Center presented The Charles M. Stevenson Retrospective.

Aided by his close friend and biographer, the artist Pamela Hunter, in his later years Stevenson hosted a monthly Second Saturday salon at his house on School Street in Mendocino.

Andarin Arvola shares this glimpse: "His studio/home was a rough and tumble two-storey house with a whimsy of unexpected charm and delight tucked into every corner. At the end of a short winding path into the dense foliage of the backyard was another structure, a room of windows. There were often art projects displayed there as well. An old ornate metal bed made up with fall leaves looked especially inviting."

One of Charles Stevenson's final gifts is the memory of those special evenings where food and wine were plentiful, young artists exhibited new work, local musicians performed, poets gave readings and all were welcome.

- Carol Goodwin Blick (2008)

Zacha's Bay Window Gallery offers a selection of Charles Stevenson's works for sale as well as a growing archive for art lovers and scholars.