Spotlight Series: Colby Sanford
Image by Emily Bade.
Over the past few months, we’ve talked a lot on our blog and on Instagram about the importance of heirlooms and meaningful art in our homes. These pieces truly hold so much meaning and make our homes that much more special and personal.
I recently decided to commission a portrait of my daughters in the creek behind our home from Utah-based artist Colby Sanford. If you haven’t heard of Colby, you’ve already seen his work featured in our Dutch Fields project. We love Colby’s work, so in place of a Good to Know this week, we wanted to spotlight him.
Below, you can read all about Colby’s history and inspirations. His work is available through the Meyer Gallery or Foursquare Art, and you can click here to follow him on Instagram.
Tell us a little bit about yourself and your business.
I’m lucky enough to be a full time artist. It is really fun and also kind of hard. Sometimes it’s a balancing act of time when you work for yourself and like to be with your family so much, but it feels like a worthwhile and meaningful struggle.
When did you start painting? How long have you been painting professionally?
Hmm, I started painting full time about 5 or 6 years ago? I was working in China with my wife as newlyweds. We became overwhelmed with all of the waste we were creating but I had always loved art and was painting in the evenings and so I began by building a website and posting on Instagram constantly. When we visited home, I put together a little art show and invited everybody I knew. When we decided to move back to Utah, I was able to ease into it and just transition away from China work and into an art career that was getting closer and closer to a full-time gig. I feel really fortunate that I had help from lots of people to make that scary jump.
Tell us about the path that led you to be a professional painter. What inspirations from past life experiences and jobs led you to here?
I studied ceramics and what is what led us to China. I was encouraged to be creative. I still have sketchbooks from when I was a kid. Lots of spiral-bound notebooks but also lots of better quality sketchbooks with nice paper in them. I credit my parents for believing in me enough to really invest in my interests with good materials. I also don’t think I would have taken the jump without the encouragement of my wife who told me I was going to be an artist if we were going to be married.
Image by Lucy Call.
What are the primary inspirations behind your paintings? Is there a particular creator or place that you look to for inspiration?
I get my inspiration from everyday life. The way that my wife holds my daughters, or how our little girls crawl across the floor. Sometimes just the light in a room, or the games we are playing. It does make it even harder to leave, knowing that I will miss moments of inspiration.
I love to look at other artists’ work as well. Sometimes as I am immersed in an art book, I will see life just a little differently and that will spark something. I love looking at the work of the Columbian-based artist, Nicolas Uribe, New York-based Toyin Ojih Odutola, and local artist Caitlin Connolly. The Skagen painters were particularly amazing. I also can’t get enough of Vuillard, Sainer Etam, Nadia K Waheed, and Nick Alm.
I ended up going back to school and finished my BFA in Studio Art so I would love to mention the support and push from teachers/artists there like Peter Everett, Fidalis Buhler, Daniel Everett, Daniel Barney, Joe Osrtaff.
The more I do this the more I realize that it really takes lots of hard work but also a whole village of teachers and supporters and constant flashes of inspiration from everywhere. I am so grateful for every bit of it.
What subjects are your favorite to paint? Do you have a favorite painting, or a favorite series that you’ve created?
Yes. 100% my favorite subject matter is my wife. When I spend time with a painting of her I get to think about her and ask myself questions about my relationship with her. Poems that I’ve written in correlations with her paintings also feel like a precious part of the painting that I always get to keep regardless of the work being sold.
I recently had a show with Meyer Gallery in Park City. I am really proud of that work and the show as a whole.
Image by Lucy Call.
Image by Emily Bade.
How are you thoughtful in your work?
Good question! I think that thoughtfulness comes with experience. When I was just starting out, I think I had a tenacity to just run without thinking about bigger ideas. That works well but the more I paint, the more excited I am at holding onto ideas and crafting them a little more, curating them, giving them deeper meaning and connecting them with other paintings. The past year or so, I have been writing poems as I paint to pair with the finished work. It lets me work on the painting in a new dimension without overworking the paint itself. Right now, I am working on 8, 4’ x 5’ paintings as a series about a single idea that I maybe would have zoomed past with just one or two smaller painting as a “younger” painter. I am gathering Art historical references and writing more poems and reading books all on the topic that I feel gives so much more meaning to the final work.
Paintings & Their Associated Poems
How This Branch Twists and Turns
See now How this branch twists and turns
And never seems to end?
I used to think that we were climbing up,
but when our branches converged I realized
that we are climbing down.
That the farther we go together,
the deeper and stronger the branches,
the sweeter the smell of dirt
Far from the effervescent
ever-changing leaves
And softening fruit.
Closer to richness,
To nourishment,
To source.
On Our Lake’s Rich Bright Surface
I read somewhere
that a lake holds about 62,520 cubic
feet of water. With a little math, I figure that
if I were to move 100 cubic feet a day, I could
dig us a lake in about one and three quarter
years. And I would, you know, just
so we could continue to float together
through this life, on our lake’s rich, bright
surface.
By Giving Deeply of Themselves
Isn’t this how
They created the
World?
By giving deeply of themselves
To those who have
No way
Of nourishing, enriching, supplying,
Providing, sustaining, defending
Or feeding themselves?
Isn’t this how
They created the
Universe?
Isn’t this how
They themselves
Were created?