By Penny Creasy
Sally is widely published in books and magazines internationally. Her work is represented in many private and corporate and museum collections including the Butler Institute of American Art. Strand studied at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, the Art Student League, and National Academy of Design in New York. She holds a BFA degree from the University of Denver and an MFA from Laguna College of Art and Design. She is recipient of many awards including, Hall of Fame- Pastel Society of America and Eminent Pastelist Award and Designation- International Association of Pastel Societies. Strand teaches workshops and master classes internationally and is a member of the Pastel Society of Colorado.
Penny Creasy (PC) – Sally and I sat down with a cup of tea, a telephone, and 800 miles between us. As we began discussing family, travels and art, 14 years melted away. She had recently returned from Europe and told me about going to Poland.
PC: I have been looking forward to this interview, but before we get started I would like for you to share your story about what you found. Tell me about that please.
Sally Strand (SS): In July of this summer we found the POW camp my Dad was held for a year during WWII. It was unknowingly almost to the exact day he was interned 80 years earlier in 1944. The information said: Owen Strand, navigator, shot down in Hungary, imprisoned at Stalag 3, Germany. It is now Poland. He was liberated by General Patton. It was a very poignant and emotional experience, especially considering the historical and personal significance. Visiting the same location whereby my Dad was held as a POW, particularly on such a close anniversary. It was surreal.
PC: Thank you for sharing that. Stories like that should be heard and remembered, I will. Now I think we should get to the business at hand. Do you remember when you came to Grand Junction 14 years ago? You had almost broken your neck due to a surfing accident?
SS: Oh my gosh, I had forgotten about that.
PC: You wore a brace to keep your neck in place and had a determination to judge and teach a workshop. That was a pretty big deal. I was impressed, and I have looked forward to this conversation with you. You are a native of Colorado aren’t you?
SS: Yes I am! I live in California, but my heart is in Colorado. I was born in Denver and grew up in Golden and Evergreen.
PC: Being an artist herself, I think your Mom directed you towards art as a career ?
SS: Yes, she was very active in the Art Community. Mom was part of the founding members of the Foothills Art Center in Golden. She knew Doug Dawson, and she took me to meet him and watch him paint when I was a young girl. He has been generous to advise me on occasion through the years.
PC: That leads me to the question, what led you to your pastel journey? Did it begin then, as a young girl?
SS: No. I really didn’t know much about what pastel was at the time. As I continued my studies on the way to a career, I was in New York in art school. I was working in watercolor and seemed to have reached a plateau. I had an old set of pastels and I began painting over the watercolor with pastels. At that time underpainting was not used. Pastel was a dry medium on Canson paper. There weren’t any real darks in my limited set of pastels. I discovered I could achieve the deep dark values with my watercolors.
PC: Was your Mom your best critic?
SS: Yes! She would look at a piece and say “ You can’t let this out of the studio with the arm looking like that. She would smile and say “I’ll go to the kitchen and read the paper, while you fix it”.
PC: When you are in your studio, listening to classical music and developing an idea, what is your process?
SS: With an idea in mind I create a thumbnail, looking for shapes, I’m thinking on paper. I use my sketch book and things develop.
PC: What do you do to get the juices flowing?
SS: I start with a warm up. A small painting from life, not a photo.
PC: I know you and Mark raised two sons. That is a very busy time in a woman’s life. Two sons,a husband, and building a career. How did you do that?
SS: I had a clear sense of priorities. I did the things at the time that couldn’t be repeated. I kept in mind the things I valued. My faith, my family and my work. Keeping a balance was important.
PC: Your workshops are very popular. Was teaching a part of your plans?
SS: No I didn’t really set out to teach. The Scottsdale Artists’ School asked me to teach a workshop and I taught there for 18 years.I found it gave me a connection to other artists. An artists life is very solitary. Teaching has given me community and I had to add words to my art. As a result I have taught for over 40 years, teaching nationally and internationally. When you teach, you learn.
PC: How did you find the direction for your work?
SS: My paintings had been in other exhibitions, but a big opportunity happened. I was juried into the Laguna Beach Festival of Arts. This was my first experience displaying my work to a larger audience for several months and learning the retail side of an art career – or marketing and selling my own work. At the festival a woman stood transfixed in front of a painting of a leafy head of lettuce for a long time. Finally, a bit worried,I spoke to her. She replied “ I will never look at my vegetable drawer in the same way again”. I decided then that art has a wonderful purpose. I decided to interpret the ordinary things for people to really see. People sometimes look, but they don’t see.
PC: That is an artist’s job, isn’t it? Tell me more about that.
SS: I look for small moments of life that are often overlooked. Painting the mundane and familiar, challenges me to make the common place unusual.
PC: You have mastered the magic of light.
SS: I am captivated by light! I am interested in abstract shapes and spaces. The formal space combined with naturalistic figures and the many nuances of light are my muse.
PC: Things have changed since that old box of pastels in New York, haven’t they?
SS: Everything has! Everything is digital and online. I used a camera, and developed the film in the bathtub and printed my own photos. I communicated with galleries by phone, letters, slides, photos and FAX. Now galleries find artists on line. Workshops are on line. I had to learn how to make videos. I just completed doing an online demo as a guest artist for a group in Australia.
PC: Have you learned things about yourself through your art? (There was a thoughtful pause).
SS: I learned to not be so hard on myself. I learned to trust that there will be a certain segment of viewers who connect with what I do and others will not, and that is okay.
PC: Sally this has been so interesting to travel down the road with you, so to speak.Do you have some words of wisdom to leave artists with?
SS: There is no clear path in an art career. How do you know when you have arrived? Don’t panic and be hard on yourself. Making art is a life long journey. It is important to stay focused on the act of creating. I adopted the quote from a famous artist when she said, “ Just do the work. The rest will follow”. This helped me prioritize and stay focused on painting.
PC: I believe Sally is a great example of what Maya Angelou meant when she said “ The more creativity you use, the more you will have.
