Artspan Artist Interview with Jan Sasser

When did you realize you loved art and wanted to be an artist?

I can't recall a time when I wasn't aware I loved art.  Books, music, and visual arts were all valued in my family.  As a child, I loved to draw and was inspired by the sketching of an older sister as well
as my great uncle's amateur painting and sculpting.  When I asked for quality drawing supplies they were given, along with the imperative to treat them with respect and practice basic skills first.

However, family role models made their living in “more practical
ways.  I didn't conceive of art as a career choice until much later in life.  I flirted with the idea of applied art as a young adult, but didn't actually make the move to painting full time til pushing 50, after many years as a social worker.  By that time, the backing and support of an exceptional spouse made the risk more feasible.




Who has been your mentor, or greatest influence to date?

I wouldn't say I've had a mentor per se, though living in Charleston, I've had the luxury of example and interaction with many fine artists.  While few are traditional realists like myself, there is always something to learn from one's masterful use of
color or another's exceptional composition skills.  The generosity of successful artists with technical tips and career advice often amazes me.  I'm grateful to Rick Reinert and others who have nurtured my confidence along the way and “nudged” me at  key moments to shoot for a high profile show or opportunity that paid off.


Who is another living artist you admire and why?

One of several who come immediately to mind is Mary Whyte, a Charleston watercolor artist of international renown.  I've long admired her mastery of watercolor but did not recognize how exceptional she is until seeing a major body of her work recently in her “Working South” exhibition.  Each piece is an evocative gem of dynamic composition, rich color and texture, and masterfully rendered images that   express the character and personality of each worker and workplace environment.  Pieces are all part of a totally coherent and integrated concept.  It's as though she “wrote a book in pictures” that tells the tale of a disappearing way of life and makes you feel you know all the characters.  How can you fail to admire an artist who can do that?




What is your favorite surface to create work on or to work with? Describe it if you make it yourself.

I paint on prestretched primed canvas or linen.  As a slow painter, I find these far too satisfying to be tempted to invest time in making or preparing my own.  I love the “spring” of canvas against my touch.   A good even medium tooth weave interacts beautifully with my brushes and varying strokes to create textural illusions while
still being “flat” enough to allow precise lines and details when needed.


What are your favorite materials to use?

Simply, professional grade Winsor Newton Oils, odorless mineral
spirits for solvent, and refined linseed oil as a medium.  For brushes I like hog bristle for underpainting and certain textures.
I like soft red sables for details, clouds, blending edges, etc.

Do you have a favorite color palette?

My basic palette is:
   
Titanium White, Naples Yellow, Ochre, Cadmium Lemon, Cadmium Yellow Deep, Raw Umber, Rose Madder Genuine,
Cobalt Violet, Cerulean Blue, French Ultramarine, and Ivory Black
(added recently and used “rarely and sparely” in mixes of darkest darks).  Cadmium Red, Gamlin Radiant Red, and Gamlin Radiant Magenta are included occasionally for specific pieces.  Certainly, I could manage well with fewer colors, but find all these useful so
“why not?”

VL Studio Visit with James Loveless

Art has been my passion for as long as I can remember.  I love people and I have relished drawing and painting the figure since my grade school days.  Fortunately, none of those early grammar school portraits are at my website.  My purpose is to create images that are beautiful and historical. My focus is to display Christian, family values and reveal the truth by reflecting historical facts. .  My Bachelor of Fine Art at the Kansas City Art Institute led me to life as a full-time graphic designer and freelance illustrator for over thirty years.  I enjoy the play of light and color in nature and I enjoy telling a good story.

When I am not painting commissioned portraits, or painting plein air, I have cherished having several Native Americans pose for me.  I have been interested in the life of Native Americans because of my ancestry.  My grandfather was a cowboy, horse trainer and rancher in Fayetteville, Arkansas. He was married to my grandmother, who was half-Cherokee and half-African American.  I remember when I was a little boy.  Then, I would ride horseback and sometimes travel to see my grandfather in rodeos in Oklahoma and Arkansas; it was an awesome experience.  Currently, I am researching the history of the relationship between Native Americans and African Americans in the old west.  I have been fortunate to gain the assistance from the Texas Civil War Museum.  Their historians assist me in my quest to insure all the artifacts in my paintings are authentic.  My goal is to have my paintings auctioned successfully at the Coeur d' Alene in Reno, Nevada.

I am a member of the Oil Painters of America and I work in oil paint because I enjoy the flexibility of oils.  I enjoy observing people and I still continue in figure drawing sessions with the live model.  I challenge myself to work more efficiently by writing articles and blogs about different oil painting techniques and attending workshops.  Some of the painters that have influenced me include; Norman Rockwell, Caravaggio, Howard Terpning and Mian Situ.

I hope you enjoy my work!

VL Studio Visit with Milton Wagner

Milton Wagner – Aspen Ironworks
Master Craftsman
www.AspenIronworks.com

 The crisp smell of aspen trees has always reminded me of the Colorado high country cowboy life.  I was born and bred in a small mountain town in southwest Colorado.   The only thing I ever wanted to do was be a cowboy.  My mother had a picture of a three year old me with a rope in my hand chasing after a chicken.  From chickens, I moved on to dogs, calves and occasionally my sister.
I was lucky enough to come from a farming family tree with the occasional cowboy branch.  I grew up on stories told to me by my two favorite cowboy heroes - my great uncle Clem & uncle Henry. Other cowboys I idolized were John Wayne, Louis L’Amour, Tom Mix and the boys from the Ponderosa.

I’ve often been asked why cowboys are my idols and I guess it really boils down to what a cowboy stands for.  The cowboys I was lucky enough to know were loyal, honest and hardworking.  
When I was in high school, I divided my time between metal shop and cow punching for local ranchers. Whenever the ranches needed equipment fixed, I was the go-to person because of my metal-working background.  I learned early on how to use my imagination to envision metal as a great medium.

When I was eighteen, I broke my first horse.  That horse was my best friend and partner in crime for the next 36 years.  Right after high school, I met my lovely wife. While we raised our three children, I worked as an iron worker for money and moonlighted as a cowboy for fun.  In my spare time, I’d gather leftover metal, wood and horseshoes for future art projects.

I started Aspen Ironworks, an eco-friendly metal art studio 15 years ago because I wanted to work for myself & focus more on my art pieces. I work in two main areas - a studio/workshop on the back of my property and under a large oak tree overlooking the horses.  I use the oak tree forge when the weather is too nice to stay indoors.  I use a handmade forge, several pairs of tongs handed down from my grandfather to father and then to me, and two anvils - a 200 pound workshop anvil and an 80 pound vintage farrier anvil which I can transport if I need to.

I started out with individuals cowboys made from leftover rebar and quickly graduated to western scenes.  I thought about what does a cowboy do? A cowboy’s life is simple. Cowboys rope, they ride, and they drink.  My western pieces reflect this lifestyle. I do bar scenes, I do rodeo scenes and I do cattle drive scenes.

I feel my work is unique for three main reasons.  First, my cowboy knowledge is authentic. It's important to me that the story I tell is the right one.  I've been in these situations I craft out of metal.  I've been bucked off a bronco and know which part of the cowboy is last to touch the horse. I've roped cows and know the correct angle of the rope loop. My cowboys hold it at the right angle for roping a cow on the first try. I’ve been on top of the mountain when it's cold and freezing and the only thing you want is a cup of coffee around the campfire. 

Secondly, I believe in doing lifetime work.  I’m putting my name on each of these pieces & I want the people who buy my art to have something that will last them for generations to come. There are metal workers out there who just tack their pieces together and that irritates me. If you're going to do a true work of art, you need to craft it right. Thirdly, I believe in leaving a better world for my children and grandchildren than I had which is why 95% of the materials I use are recycled, reused, or eco-friendly.  I gather used horseshoes from my farrier friends & old metal bits from local farmers and scrap metal shops.  I even have a page on my website for local residents to schedule scrap metal pickups.

Every piece of my art has a unique story.  For example, each mirror used on my bar scenes is a rearview mirror from a scrapped car or truck.  My chuck wagon base is the bottom of an old broken rototiller.  Recently I created a steampunk bug with ball bearings I had received when we replaced a steel ball mill in a gold mine. The ball bearings start out 8 inches in diameter and they roll around and crush up ore to extract the gold.   By the time I got them, they had been worn down to about an inch across. I saw those and thought they would make great eyes.

I'm really excited about a trio art piece I'm working on right now. I've got a cattle drive scene. I've got a chuck wagon, and I’m in the process of designing the campfire scene. After driving the cattle all day, there's nothing more a cowboy wants than to take a load off and grab a cup of coffee around fire. I’ve already decided how to make the fire. I have some discarded copper plating which I will melt down and then beat back up into flames.

Even though I’m retired from day to day ranching, I still get to play cowboy occasionally.  Twice a year I head to Colorado. I help drive my son’s high-altitude grass-fed cattle up onto their mountain grazing lands in the spring and back down in the fall. Driving the cattle among the aspen trees inspires this old cowboy to come home and preserve that vanishing way of life through lasting sculptures.

“He who works with his hands is a laborer.
He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.
He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”
~Francis of Assisi

VL Studio Visit with Carol Jo Smidt

My fascination with the beauty and grace of horses greatly influenced my artistic path. Drawing horses as a 4 year old is my first recollection of my passion for art. My bedroom walls were covered with my pencil drawings of my beloved horses. Hours were spent drawing horses and other animals. It was in kindergarten that I realized others would want my art. Dissatisfied with my work, I took a horse drawing and threw it in the trash can. A classmate reached into the trash and took the drawing because he liked it! Even at that young age, I was amazed that people would want my work!

After high school, I attended the St. Paul School of Art. Fast-forward with me through marriage, a son, 21 addresses in 26 years during my husband’s Navy career, and a BA in Advertising Design from Iowa State University. We finally settled in an equine community outside of Woodbine, a small town in southeast Georgia. I finally could have my beloved horses on our small farm, but although my passion for art was there it still resided deep within and struggled to come fully alive.

After a dozen years as a self-employed graphic designer and periodic dabbling with a paint brush, I learned that my passion for art was to call me back via yet another path. Enrolling in Savannah College of Art and Design and taking a number of graphic design graduate courses, I was finally brought back to my first love. It was on this part of my journey that I realized my need to leave the work and world of graphic design to get back to my first love – the visual arts and my painting!



What is my painting world like today? I recently moved from a small loft on the third floor in our house to my new studio, which is the entire first floor of our house. I set myself on a fairly structured schedule, and I focus on some aspect of my new artist’s life on Monday through Friday, 9 to 5. Many mornings are spent with paperwork and research.  Without a schedule, my painting time would vanish, and I would have a lot of blank canvas! My work is best done with some breaks. I take small vacations, but after a few days, I hear the call of my paints, brushes, and canvases, and I eagerly get back to my easel and pour myself into my paintings.

For me, painting is like working on a puzzle, without the picture on the box to guide me. Most times the answers do not come particularly fast. But by experimenting, nudging here and there, my ideas begin to take form and a new painting comes to life. I normally paint by adding layers over layers. When the paint becomes too wet or my eyes too fatigued by looking at the colors being used, I move on to another painting. I have between 4 to 12 paintings in different stages of completion. 

I’ve heard it said that there is “beauty in the everyday”. I agree. I enjoy painting ordinary subjects with extraordinary colors. My painting subjects are usually animals, but I like the challenge of painting other subjects. Through my painting experiences, I have branched out by creating landscapes, still life, and figurative art.


Wanting to expand beyond oils, I started painting with pastels and gouache. I have grown to love these two new media. Changing my media and changing the size of canvases from ultra-mini to very large helps me move into a new creative arena.

Not wanting to become too comfortable with my art, I strive to continue to learn by trying anything new; subjects, color combinations, techniques, and media. Knowing that you need to discover by doing, I have learned that my “best teacher is my canvas”. I have come to believe that “to learn is to paint” and “to paint is to learn”.

Participating in regional art shows and festivals is one of the ways that I promote my art and to develop relationships with collectors and potential collectors. I belong to a number of local and national art organizations. Painting is a solitary pursuit, and I can easily become a hermit. In addition to getting out of my painting world, it is necessary to have the support from other artists. My contacts with other artists become great learning tools to see their art up close and personal and to get to know the artist behind the painting.

For me, the journey of a painting is part ability, part technique, part intuition, part sweat, and hours of learning from past paintings. The reward and joy of this journey is the painting process and continues to the person who emotionally connects to one of my paintings. Pet paintings of animals that have passed have provided me with some of my most powerful emotional connections. One owner of a loving pet, Savannah, who recently passed shared this: “my sister and brother-in-law had this painting done for us (by me) and it captures her just perfectly!”  This is one of the big reasons I paint!

carol@caroljosmidt.com
www.caroljosmidt.com

VL Studio Visit with JW Burke

Hello and thank you for taking interest in my artwork. I am a self-taught artist who grew up believing art was beyond my capability. When I was 11, my mother bought me a sketchpad and charcoal pencils saying, “Here, I think you are going to be an artist.”

At age 18, I hadn’t discovered my artistic ability. It was 1988; I lived in Carmel, California, working maintenance for a wealthy businessman. I spent my days off roaming the streets partly chasing girls and partly admiring the many incredible galleries. My future would soon be decided for me by a group of peers. As a cruel prank, they poisoned me with a massive LSD overdose. This caused me to suffer severe constant delusions, audio and visual hallucinations, and harbor paranoid delusional thoughts. These mimicked the symptoms of paranoid schizophrenia. I was unable to maintain my sanity. I lived either homeless, getting in trouble with the law, or in mental health hospitals attempting to regain my sanity. I lived filthy and homeless, begging for change and sleeping in a box. In September of 1997, my delusions drove me to commit two acts of robbery, both without bloodshed. My delusions over the years had convinced me that I was somehow being controlled by, or tortured by, manmade voices. For some unknown reason, sounds emanating from public television or radio subliminally tormented me.

I remember clearly how, upon my arrest, as soon as I was handcuffed and placed in the police car, my delusions stopped – dead quiet. No voices, no hallucinations, no disorientation, just the sound of the car and the static of the police radio. Having spent the past decade tortured in such a way, then to have it immediately stop, did not immediately make me well and whole again. I had to get over a decade’s worth of confusion, emotional, and physiological torture. The task of rebuilding my sanity lay before me while I awoke to the fact that I faced spending the remainder of my life in prison.

I began drawing in my cell to help stabilize, exercise, and restructure my mind against relapse.  Soon I asked myself, “What can you do to save yourself?” “What are your options?” Well, in prison, you have very few ways to succeed, especially in Texas. There are college courses and classes to get your GED. But I needed to think of the long prison term I faced and calculate that into my decision. To become an artist or a writer would allow me two ways to strengthen my mind: 1) teach myself a career that could lead to financial independence, and 2) obtain possible assistance in regaining my freedom. I have always believed in myself. I’ve always wanted to live my life as a good father and husband and hopefully someday, when I pass away, I could do so knowing that I was loved and had loved, as well as done my best to achieve things to be proud of.

In prison they have what is called “The Craft Shop” which is where inmates go to do leather work, artwork or other crafts to possibility earn an income for their families or themselves when they get

out. You must get on a very long waiting list. Out of 4,500 men in my prison only 50 to 80 inmates get in. I’ve waited twelve years, and every time my number comes up, an officer writes a bogus disciplinary case, which bars me from entry. Sometimes the guards and prison officials are just as criminal as the inmates. That’s just how it is and no one seems to be willing or able to change it. For the innocent or repentant man, prison life is hell. For everyone else, it is their chosen environment. In my drawing lessons over the years, I slowly found that any moment I wasn’t drawing was time wasted. My work improved and I found that once I understood how to achieve accuracy in drawing I could create anything, which meant all sorts of excitement and pride of achievement. I work at drawing 10 to 14 hours a day, 7 days per week.

While I create artwork of a variety of subject matter, I especially enjoy creating extremely detailed Westerns depicting ranch scenes, rodeo, or Old West themes. I also enjoy creating wildlife and other works.

I usually work in graphite or colored pencil. The black and white of graphite has the ability to transcend time as well as create realistic textures that work together with detail to make you almost smell the leather, feel the heat of the day, or hear the pounding of hooves. With Western art, more than any other subject, I am able to capture the interest of the viewer, not only because of the great detail, but because it evokes emotions in the form of pride – deep pride earned from hard work, calluses, and lives well lived. This is the greatest payoff for an artist. If you can make someone proud of themselves by what you have created, then you have created something
more than art, something you can be proud of. You have touched people personally.

My portfolio contains many other subjects and media but, at this point, the Western subject matter and graphite medium are my favorites.  My hopes are to create works of art of a quality worthy of being collected by an appreciative audience and to earn my living through my art. Regardless of what

happens, I will continue to grow as an artist and creating art will remain part of my life’s passion. Very recently, a long lost son has been located and besides saving for my freedom someday, I hope to help put him through college and begin saving for my future grandchildren. Anyone wishing to support me in my artistic endeavors should feel free to write a letter of support to the Texas Parole Board.

Thank you again for your interest in and support of my work.

VL Studio Visit with Marcia Baldwin

My first memory of being captured by art was in my grandmothers home in Texas. She was very artistic with quilting and sewing, but at times would take classes in art using mediums such as charcoal and pastel. I remember standing and staring at a charcoal drawing she had done and was framed in her dining room. It captivated me, even as a small child. When we would enjoy a sweet afternoon or morning out on her huge porch, sitting in her double glider, she would sketch small things and give the paper and pencil over to me to try. My favorite subject, even then, was horses. She would encourage me and we would giggle at the funny subjects we came up with.

My mom was the one who first started me painting. She enrolled me in a summer workshop with a noted artist, Louise Sicard, at our Louisiana state museum. Every morning, I would enjoy setting up my small easel and laying out my paints on my palette in anticipation of the famous artist to begin his demonstration and how we would first start on our paintings. It was information of color and brush stroke that I still retrieve in my mind even to this day, even after 50 years. We used oil paints for this workshop, and I am still in love with the smell of turps and oil paints, as much as all those wonderful days during that first workshop.



Mom would take me to our local park next to our lake, full of swamp things, huge pine trees, and gorgeous bald cypress trees with Spanish moss on almost every limb. She would draw and paint in water color the most beautiful scenes and I would try my best to do what she was doing. But the most important thing I learned from these times, was to look and see and try to capture real nature on paper.



I received my Bachelors of Fine Art from Louisiana Tech University in Ruston, La. in 1974. My most influential instructor was a fine artist/illustrator, Albino Hinahosa. His focus on good design, composition, figurative subject matter, and attention to detail were taught in a loose illustrative style. I incorporate the elements of design, learned in these years with him. Color theory classes infatuated me also and I reflect back on projects using and understanding color, how it affects the viewers eye, the emotions, the movements in a composition and in general how it creates excitement.  I was very pleased to receive the 1974 Illustrator of the Year Award from Louisiana Tech University.



Many years prior to attending college, my first most influential teacher was actually my elementary school principal, Mr. Middleton. He always had special projects going in the arts and I would be right there waiting to be included. One I remember so vividly was huge mosaic murals about the history of Louisiana and those murals still hang prominently in the cafeteria and auditorium of this elementary school. His encouragement to paint and draw garnered my very first award for a regional contest depicting thoughts on beautifying our city. I won a cash award and a spot on a local tv program. I was hooked. I loved being an artist and I was only 9 years old !  Art is so important in our early years and needs to be in our school programs.



I believe, working as an advertising designer, had the most influence on my work today. It was challenging every day, being creative on the spur of the moment. It was fast paced and you had to pay attention to client needs, detail, and incorporate all the elements and principles of design to be successful in this field. I use those skills today in my oil paintings, and paint with bold, fast, strong color and brush strokes. It is on an intuitive level, letting a painting come together through my minds eye.



I welcome commission orders. Some of the collectors of my works of art, return for specific subjects and compositions on commission. We talk by email and by phone and decide on subject, size, and client photos (if needed). Most of the time, requests come in for a painting based on some of my past sold works, and I enjoy those the most. The client will specify a specific size canvas or will ask my opinion on size that I feel is most appropriate for a particular subject. It is always a joy to bring their requests to completion and send the painting to the client for their first “reveal” upon opening their carefully prepared shipping package. I take great pride in every work I send out.



My love of horses goes way back about 56 years, when my mom and dad got our first horse for our family. I have owned and ridden horses ever since and found you could learn something new about them each day and still have much more to learn.  In 1985, I created a video of how to draw the horse anatomy and the simple and short “how to video” was bought by Walt Disney Productions for their study and an up coming animated movie. I was thrilled. In college, I still drew and painted horses, and at one point, one of my professors told me that if I would quit using bold colors and quit drawing and painting horses, I might become a good artist.
This only made me want to explore the horse as a subject more and use even bolder color. The true love of horses, my intense desire to know them and understand their psyche, their anatomy, the look in their eyes and their true desire to please you, has brought me to this point in my painting style when painting horses. It is the awareness of the beauty of this magnificent creature that I want to convey in my paintings. I want viewers to understand how important this gift from God is and the need to protect our wild horses in America and beyond.