One of the favorite parts of my job is going on studio visits. Artists often bring their personal vision of beauty to their homes and studios. They accumulate interesting things, have beautiful gardens and collect marvelous art from all of their friends.
Their studios are full of things too. There are often postcards, newspaper clippings and pages ripped from books that have images that inspire them. There will also be incomplete sketches or the sorts of drawings and paintings that they might never sell. This is all fascinating to me- like an opportunity to see how they think.
I visited the home and studio of Sandy Wadlington this past week to see how her show in September is shaping up.Sandy's studio is small and cozy. It is full of the art in process. As pieces near completion they are put up on the wall for her to assess as she works on other pieces.
I am amazed at how many pastel sticks she uses. As you can see there are boxes and boxes of them. She has also tacked up paper bags underneath her work are to catch any pastel dust that filters down as she works. Pastels have very little binder in them to make them hold together or even hold on to the paper. Therein lies their beauty- they are almost pure pigment, giving a finished pastel unsurpassed color.
Sandy has also been working on a number of charcoal drawings which have the same same beautiful, atmospheric effect she gets with pastel but minus the color. For me they have the soft quality of a lithograph.
The show is shaping up nicely and Sandy and I decided on the images for the postcard. We are both looking forward to the show in September.
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