Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandy Vaillancourt.
Hi Sandy, can you start by introducing yourself? We’d love to learn more about how you got to where you are today?
My life in art has been a long and somewhat arduous journey. It takes a lot of courage and strength and self discipline to do what you love in this wild, wonderful and beautiful world. There are many choices and many distractions that set you off your creative path. I began to explore art more seriously while living in northern California where I had the most creative and inspiring neighbors. I lived in an old victorian apartment complex which had only a few tenants. But each unit had old claw foot bathtubs and old stoves and high ceilings and even a murphy bed which appeared when you turned and opened the cabinet in the wall. The tenants were mostly writers and artists and professors. There I met Anne Gregory, ar teacher at the California State University of Sacramento and Jeannie Keltner, poet, writer and expert in everything Virginia Wolf. These women were inspiring and intriguing and evocative spending their summers in Europe, teaching and making art and living the creative life every day. Anne invited me to take her class in large-format watercolor painting. Which if you have not experienced this, it opens one’s heart and mind to paint big. Before that, I had only explored the medium with small paper and used a more pastel light-colored palette. Anne took me to another level.
Her colors and bold composition showed me the way to finding and creating art that I liked. Anne also encouraged me to take Oliver Jackson’s class as well. This was yet another amazing experience. I took his class in the art and sculpture lab at CSUS. He pushed us to not kid ourselves into thinking everything we create is a masterpiece. So after we painted on brown butcher paper and used cupcake pans to hold our enamel paint and create big wild painting, we threw them away. I kept only a few paintings. If only all students could experience his teaching style and creative energy. My next challenge was simply educating myself about art in general. I was not raised in a family that had the time or the luxury to visit art museums. So between hanging around creative friends, and neighbors and taking electives in college and reading a lot, I slowly gained a bit of understanding about painting and art history. This is a life long journey. I say elective classes because I was a double major in Journalism and International relations. You see at that point in my life I did not want to be a “starving artist” and I wanted to help create a more humane and just world. I wanted to travel. So even though I loved art, I was a bit afraid to embark on the journey. So there my art and painting sat as a side hobby while I worked in California, Washington DC, NYC, and Santa Fe. When arrived in California at the beautiful old apartment complex in downtown Sacramento I was working in International Educational exchange, I had just moved back from DC and was getting ready to apply for my master’s program. I ended up getting my MFA from Columbia University where I studied art and business, being torn between my creative ambition and my love of community and business. In addition to my art classes in NYC, I worked at the Guggenheim, The Public Theater, and The World Music Institute. All of this opened my eyes more to the importance of the arts in our society. As William Fleming once wrote, artists represent their world as they themselves see it, their work becomes a reflection of their time from a particular point of view. Their temples, statues, pictures, poems, or pieces of music are indications of how sensitive members of that society imagine, dream, think, feel, and communicate. And as I see my art now, I know it is only my reflection of how I see the world. After I received my MFA, I moved back to Santa Fe to try my hand at making art. I worked for the Santa Fe Festival of the Arts and Center for Contemporary arts while making art on the side. I also planned the open studio tour in Santa Fe and met lots of artists while visiting their studios. These artists inspired me to keep at it. Though it would be another 10 years before I participated in enough art fairs and art shows that would gain the courage and stamina to open a studio gallery on Canyon Road. I had enough business experience to sell my own work and the work of others. Plus I always want to try being a small business merchant. The difficulty is dividing your time between making art and selling art. So after 7 years on Canyon Road and having a lot of fun riding my bike to the studio and painting with my little dog by my side, greeting customers from all over the world. I closed the studio at the onset of the pandemic to focus on my painting and do more by appointment only studio visits. I sell my work at Detours inside La Fonda Hotel, one of Santa Fe’s classic old historic hotels which celebrated its hundredth-anniversary last year. I am part of their artist in residence program and have had an art show there for the past 15 years. My husband and I both love the southwest which for us inlcudes, Oklahoma, Colorado, Utah, New Mexico, Arizona, and California and Texas. We spend many days exploring the deserts, mountains, and rivers. This past month we spent two weeks in the Canyon Lands of Utah.
Alright, so let’s dig a little deeper into the story – has it been an easy path overall and if not, what were the challenges you’ve had to overcome?
Ah, sigh… there have been many struggles. I do not like to convey my life struggles or the general hardships in life in my art. I feel it is enough to experience it. I want people to see my art and be able to take a breath and see a bit of fun, beauty and lightness that makes a person smile. As I said, I did not rise up from a rich and cultured background. It was more of a blue-collar beginning. My mother was a single parent who worked the graveyard shift in a factory. There was little time for making art and private classes and that sort of thing. My goal was just to help her and find a life work in which I could support myself and not be a burden to her or to society. Me and my siblings even spent time in foster care while my mother tried to get situated. Creating art and doing community work are things I hope make the world a better place. I also want my art and my path to inspire hope. That even if you come from a not-so-perfect and curated home life that you too can learn art and make art. I also teach art classes to teenagers. I really enjoy helping youth at this age and even the younger ones. For example, I meet lots of people while at La Fonda Hotel. I was there last week for a show and I will be back in December. During this time, I had one of my young art patrons return after not seeing him for 7 or with years. He is around 18 now and heading off to the Maritime Academy. He came by to purchase a painting to take along on this journey. He was only 11 or so when I first met him and he bought a painting with his own money. Another young man of 9 came back three times to my space to show me the art he created in a sketchbook I gave him. If we can all inspire and help one youth, we can make a difference. Often times, in your creative life you have to stop and start. Sometimes the kids take priority, sometimes the husbands take priority, sometimes outside work takes priority, sometimes its a health issue to attend to and sometimes it’s a financial issue where you can’t get all the supplies you need to create what you want. I think my struggles have always circled around not giving up even when one feels you are out on a limb not knowing where all this art stuff is going. You sometimes think ….this is not working. Just then is usually when some sort of magical thing happens and I get a call for a big commission, or a book illustration, or an art show or I find out I have sold a major piece of art. Or perhaps I get the call from one of the ladies in town who has more money than God and wants to use my art on her holiday card. It just takes a little thing to remind me that what I am creating is unique and people like it. I have always taken my art to the people. I enjoy meeting knew people. Someone once said, if you always do what you have always done, you will always get what you always got. So when I closed my studio gallery on the main art road in Santa Fe. I was a bit worried. But I also knew it was time for a refresh and a change that would allow me more time to paint. Another struggle is as my art gets more known and popular how do I balance taking it to another level while still being approachable and affordable. How do I keep doing the genre and themes of the paintings I do while introducing my new more modern paintings? I have always wanted to paint across America but never had the time or resources to do so. We take many road trips but there is so much to see and so little time. I would even like to take the train and try to paint and capture America the way I see it with all it’s interesting and fun, people, and places to see. Joseph Campbell once wrote in the Power of Myth that artists are the myth-makers of today. That artists, particularly those that are gifted, have ears that are open to the song of the universe. It is their role in society to help translate into meaning the complexities of our world through song, poetry, dance, art, literature, film etc. He also said, “Follow your Bliss”. Trying to follow your bliss and make a living is a challenge. Yet, there is something inside you that knows when you’re in the center, that knows when you are on the beam or off the beam. And if you get off the beam to earn money, you’ve lost your life. And if you stay in the center and don’t get money, you still have your bliss. I keep trying to stay in the center. Because when I am truly in the zone of my painting I know its my bliss and I can feel the song of the universe or the muses helping me because I surprise myself with the art that is coming out of me.
Can you tell our readers more about what you do and what you think sets you apart from others?
Currently, I create watercolors, oil paintings and mixed media acrylic paintings and drawings of scenes from everyday life and my travels in and around the southwest. From my paintings, I create fine art prints, greeting cards, that sell in Detours, the official gallery shop of the La Fonda Hotel in Santa Fe, New Mexico. I also sell my cards in several shops in Santa Fe such as Kakawa chocolate House, Nu Peru, and Doodlets/Santa Fe and on my website. Watercolor is my first love as is drawing. Most of my paintings begin as watercolors. I love its transparency and ease of use and potential. I am most known for my colors and composition. People also recognize my artwork based on the choice of subject matter and color. I am known for capturing Santa Fe, New Mexico and other places I paint… with a vibrancy and charm. It’s hard to say what I am known for as I don’t think about this idea much. It is what it is. I let other people describe my art. There are paintings I am very proud of that I still can’t believe I painted. I am pleased with my efforts to have a studio/gallery on Canyon Road for 7 years. No easy task if you know the Santa Fe art scene and the art business. Some day I hope to write a series of art history mystery stories based on my time on Canyon Road. It is a sweet thing that people are still buying my art after so many years. That I can see a painting, I created 15 or 20 years ago and make a limited edition print of it and have someone love it, right now, as if it was painted yesterday. I like knowing a variety of people like my art and that now I have art patrons. What sets me apart from others? Hmmm. Sometimes I look at my art and I think…hmmm everybody is making art. I think what sets my art apart is my color, composition, my choice of subject matter and the love and creativity I put into it. If I love it and want to keep it. I know it’s time to let it go. I am also part of the La Fonda Hotel’s artist and residence program and that in itself is nice. La Fonda is a very classic and historic place in Santa Fe. The fact that I work in watercolor, as well as other mediums is unique, watercolor is often misunderstood and underappreciated. Yet Turner created magic with it at one time in England. He also used watercolor as his medium before making an oil. Honestly, I am not sure what sets me apart, I suppose when you sell your art amongst so many choices of art, there must be some reason why an art patron chooses your art. It makes me happy that what I create is good enough for a person to hand on the wall in their home and live with it. It’s such a compliment. In the end, I don’t often think about what sets me apart from others. I simply create what I love and I hope that others will love it too.
We all have a different way of looking at and defining success. How do you define success?
It’s like the famous painter Turner once said, there is no magic or secret, is a lot of hard work”. He could go on a trip for a few weeks and make 250 drawings. There is a thin line between success and failure. If success is the accomplishment of an aim or purpose than I would say I have accomplished a lot. I have created thousands of images. Paintings that simply had to be created and painted. These paintings just came from inside me. I started each with a blank canvas or paper. When I look at how many I created I take a deep breath. Wow. I have accomplished a lot. I painted these paintings not thinking of where they would go. Who would buy them? Why I was painting the painting? I just did it. I made time for my art and creativity and that in itself is an accomplishment many people forgo in life. For me, I have painted enough to define myself as an artist without question. That’s enough for me. No, I am not famous. No, I am not rich. But I do feel I have achieved some level of success in my artwork. I do remember one day I was cleaning out my booth at an art fair. I had been painting. It was a long day. I felt the painting was not successful for me. It was not working. I threw it in the garbage. I packed up and went home. The next weekend a person came to my booth and fetched it out of the trash and told me they kept it. One never knows… My advice to artists is to keep at it. As long as you are doing it. You are improving and you are making art. Once you stop. You are no longer making art. For me, success in business and in art comes from desire and hard work. You have to want it to work. You have to want to make the business work and like making art. Find your bliss and stick with it for a bit so you can at least see your creative voice showing through.
Pricing:
- Original Paintings $200-$7,000 based on size
- Boxed Greeting Cards $25.00
- Fine Arts Prints $145-$500 based on size
- Commissions Variable based on size
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.vaillancourtfineart.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/studiovaillancourt
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/studiovaillancourtsantafe
Image Credits
SandyVaillancourt
