Today we’d like to introduce you to Sandra Kaplan.
Sandra, let’s start with your story. We’d love to hear how you got started and how the journey has been so far.
When I was a sophomore at Walnut Hills High School in Cincinnati, we painted at an urban renewal site in an older part of the city. When we arrived, I spotted a house that had been half destroyed. With its fourth side already demolished, it looked like a dollhouse. It seemed ironic to draw creative inspiration from something that was being destroyed, but that was the moment I decided to become an artist. I think I must have realized that it was within the artist’s power to transform — not in ways that deny that reality but in ways in which personal vision mixes with the world, one possibly changing the other.
As a high school senior, I spent half of every school day at the Cincinnati Art Academy taking their freshman drawing course with Julien Stanczak. After high school, I studied at Pratt Institute in NYC, receiving my BFA with honors. Some of my influential teachers were Lennart Anderson, Jacob Lawrence, and Richard Lindner.
During a post-college trip around the world, I began to spend my life as an artist. I painted nearly every day, and when I returned to the United States after my year of travel, I moved to Denver.
My first solo show was at the William Kastan Gallery in Cherry Creek, followed by exhibits in Scottsdale, Los Angeles, Santa Fe, Chicago, Cincinnati, and New York. I am currently represented by the Sandra Phillips Gallery in Denver.
My subjects come mostly from the natural world, which opens a broad range of possibilities — from botanical life to weather phenomenon to galactic exploration. All of these areas have led to various series of paintings.
Where I am now? I’m where I’ve been for most of the last 50 years. In my studio. I’m working. I’m teaching at the Art Students League. My painting life has taken me from watercolors to oils to acrylics and lately back to watercolors, where I recently showed a series of cactus paintings at Sandra Phillips Gallery.
Has it been a smooth road?
Smooth road? The artist’s life seldom can be called “smooth.” Like nearly every artist, I’ve gone through fallow periods. If you’re going to be an artist, you need to learn how to live on little so that you can survive the lean times and keep working. Mostly, those times have been few for me. I’ve also encountered periods during which I was struggling to work out a new direction as an artist. And then there practical matters, such as finding studio space in a very expensive rental market or finding the appropriate compatible gallery… But despite all of these challenges, I’ve been fortunate to remain what I intended to be, an artist.
Like everyone else, artists are subject to the whims of fate — perhaps better stated as all the things you can’t control. Good luck. I was fortunate to be able to work out issues involving the switch from watercolors to oils at Yaddo, an artist’s colony in New York. Not so good luck? My most recent show took place in the midst of the pandemic, hardly the best time for having people see my work. At the same time, I’ve been able to sell some of that work and have been able to continue working on new paintings, working with students and persevering.
Please tell us more about your art.
Many people don’t realize that every artist must be a business person as well as a creator. My parents owned and operated a hardware store. I loved watching my father mix paints and I was inspired by the store’s various textures — from sandpaper to old wooden surfaces. In addition, my mother was a great and, yes, ethical salesperson. She taught me how to fend for myself in a commercial environment, a skill that has served me well throughout my career.
I have had my own studio for all of my professional life. I create two dimensional art with watercolor, oil, acrylic, and mixed media, exhibiting my work in galleries, art centers and museums. I have executed a number of large scale commissions for corporate and public art collections, most recently for the Colorado Convention Center.
As an artist, I have technical proficiency in numerous media. My work sometimes looks representational, sometimes abstract, but I feel that both perspectives express a kind of reality. I enjoy looking at my subject matter through different lenses and feel my use of these visual, mathematical, scientific, and imaginary perspectives suggests the fullness of our world.
As a teacher, I’m told that I have an unusual ability to understand the vision of my students and to guide them to find their unique focus.
Let’s touch on your thoughts about our city – what do you like the most and least?
I enjoy the many wonderful people I have met in Denver. And I really appreciate the way this metropolitan area has grown in the many years I’ve lived here. When I first came to Denver, I began to bake bread because of the poor quality bread available. Eventually, I stopped because the quality of restaurants, bakeries and groceries dramatically improved. Now, I’ve begun to bake again, due to this pandemic.
Contact Info:
- Address: Gallery representative:
Sandra Phillips Gallery
47 W. 11th Ave.
Denver CO, 80204
303-931-2991 - Website: www.sandrakaplan.com
- Email: sandrakaplanart@gmail.com
- Instagram: http://www.instagram.com/sandrakaplanart
- Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/Sandra-Kaplan-Studio-859221757744715/?notifid=1591675791184286¬ift=page_instagram_follower
Image Credit:
Sandra Kaplan
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