SANDY KAPLAN
 |
| Sandy Kaplan at “SOFA CHICAGO 2018” with her work “Picasso and His Muses,” represented by Gallery Victor Armendariz. |
About the artist: "Since 1989, when I took my first hand building class from Jim Ibur at Craft Alliance while working in development at Barnes-Jewish Hospital, I have pursued a second career as a ceramic artist. I am still affiliated with Craft Alliance using their clay studio for over thirty years. I have shown and sold my work in exhibits through arts organizations and galleries, in St. Louis and other cities; most recently at SOFA Chicago – 2019, where I was represented by Gallery Victor Armendariz.
 |
| Sandy Kaplan. “Breakfast at Tiffany’s.” 2019. Ceramic, 19”x13 1/2”x19”. $3,000. This artwork is currently on view at the Gallery Victor Armendariz, Chicago, IL. |
Roxanne Phillips: Describe your artistic process/technique
Sandy Kaplan: I work with terra cotta clay, coil building and sculpting figures in bas-relief on vessels or freestanding. I narrate stories through my art. I use low-fire glazes in a painterly way to bring my figures to life. The process begins with building/sculpting, glazing, bisque firing, more glazing and a second firing in a low-fire electric kiln at Craft Alliance where I’ve been hand-building since 1989.
 |
| Sandy Kaplan. “A Moveable Feast.” 2015. Ceramic, 17”x28’x48”. $15,000. |
RP: What is the biggest point of inspiration for your artwork?
SK: Many famous artists have inspired me to create my sculptures, including Picasso, Magritte, Matisse, Warhol and Miro as well as films like West Side Story, A Streetcar Named Desire, Casablanca and Gone with the Wind; and authors such as Ernest Hemingway and Eugene O’Neill.
RP: What do you find most challenging/rewarding about the creative process?
SK: When I get an idea for a project, I need to think through all the components of the piece. One challenge I had was how I was going to build the table for my 2015 tableau, “A Moveable Feast.” I was referred to graduate student in architecture at Sam Fox School of Art and Design at Washington University, to help design the table with exact measurements for the structure which I made from clay. This installation was my most challenging and most rewarding project.
 |
| Sandy Kaplan. “Andy Warhol’s Beauties.” 2020. Ceramic, 40”x20”x20”. $3,500. |
RP: What is it that you are most eager to convey through your art/ how do you want the viewer to receive or interpret or your art?
SK: My work is about people/relationships and the feelings they convey through my narrative sculptures. I want the viewers to feel the emotions of the people in my sculptures, whether iconic or not. In some of my art, I’ve expressed work by famous artists’ paintings, transforming them into the ceramic world.
 |
| Featured in "Storytellers" at Art Saint Louis. Sandy Kaplan. “Leonard Bernstein Conducts West Side Story.” 2019. Ceramic, 43”x17”x17”. $4,000. Artist’s statement: “The celebration of Leonard Bernstein’s 100th anniversary of his birthday took place across the globe two years ago and inspired me to create “Leonard Bernstein Conducts West Side Story,” which happens to be my favorite musical. The three scenes depicted on the vessel are Tony and Maria on the balcony, Anita and friends singing and dancing, and gang leaders for the Sharks and Jets, Bernardo and Riff. The bust of Leonard Bernstein conducting is a reminder to all of us what an amazing composer he was and how the music from West Side Story is and always will be spectacular. West Side Story, Bernstein’s version of Romeo and Juliet, is timeless as we still face differences in diversity and cultures today. A revival of West Side Story had opened on Broadway in 2019 and Steven Spielberg is currently filming an updated version of the movie.” |
RP: Do you think that creativity involves putting your heart and soul into your work? Or is it more like letting your mind flow freely to witness the surprising results of your actions?
SK: I always have put my heart and soul into my work and try to express my feelings in the narrative of my sculptures. I love working with clay to create each piece of art. When I get an idea for a project, I am always excited to see another one of my sculptures come out of the kiln and that certainly warms my heart.
 |
| CB Adams. “Surface Tension.” 2020. Silver Gelatin Photograph, 12:x12”. $225. |
About the artist: CB Adams, MFA, is an award-winning fiction writer and fine art photographer based in the Greater St. Louis area. Adams received first place in the Missouri Arts Council’s Writers’ Biennial and Missouri Writing! Competitions, and was named “St. Louis’ Most Under-Appreciated Writer” in the independent weekly St. Louis Riverfront Times. Adams draws upon a collection of more than 50 film-based and digital cameras in a wide range of formats from 4x5 to 35mm to create distinctive images. His work has shown in galleries nationwide, including St. Louis, Boston, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, and New York City.
Roxane Phillips: Describe your artistic process/technique.
CB Adams:
I am an ambidextrous artist who has won the Missouri Arts Council’s
highest writing award (the defunct Writers’ Biennial) and who has had
photographs exhibited at more than 30 group, juried and themed shows
across the U.S. in the past several years. These two artistic processes
flow from my attraction to use a detail to evoke a larger story. Whether
writing a short story or making a photograph, I’m always looking for
that “telling detail.” For my analog-based photographs, I’m using wet
darkroom techniques to reveal the details that resonate for me, and I
hope, for the viewer.
 |
| CB Adams. “Contemplation of Flight.” 2020. Color Photographic Print on Glass, 15.6”x20.8”. $150. |
RP: What is the biggest point of inspiration for your artwork?
CBA:
During an interview at the Kansas City NPR station years ago, I was
asked this same question and my answer then still holds true today:
Everything from cereal boxes and soup cans to art books, galleries of
all sorts and sizes, literature, and just life itself. I know that
sounds broad and unfocused, but in “The Art Spirit” Robert Henri stated it best: “The object isn't to make art, it's to be in that wonderful state which makes art inevitable.”
RP: What do you find most challenging/rewarding about the creative process?
CBA:
I think sometimes I’m addicted to the feeling of being in my creative
zone, when I’m in the flow, and the way time falls away and all that
matters is the act of creation. I’m lucky as a photographer that I can
experience that flow when taking photographs and then printing them.
Ansel Adams compared the photographic negative to a composer’s score and
the print to the performance. Because I develop my black-and-white
negatives and print them in my darkroom, I’m grateful to be both the
composer and the performer. It’s like that old Doublemint gum jingle:
double your pleasure, double your fun.
RP: What was it that first prompted your career/activity as an artist?
CBA:
I have not experienced a defining moment like that. I was a precocious,
inquisitive, creative child. I think it was Picasso who famously said,
“Every child is an artist. The problem is how to remain an artist once
he grows up.” It can be brutally difficult to structure my life in a way
that doesn’t kill or maim that child-artist in me yet allows me to also
flourish as a professional.
RP: What is it about your preferred medium that you enjoy the most?
CBA:
I have more than 50 cameras in my studio, including 8x10 and 4x5 view
cameras, medium format, multiple plastic toy cameras, some beloved
Nikons I’ve had since high school, as well as some digital cameras. I
choose a camera for a particular subject the same way a painter chooses a
brush. Loading, carrying, shooting with cameras – especially film
cameras -- is a highly visceral, tactile experience, as is processing
and printing the images in my wet darkroom. I remember being very young
and someone handing me an old empty Brownie Hawkeye camera and I started
pressing the shutter again and again. That was probably the gateway
moment when photography found me, rather than the other way around.
 |
| CB Adams. “Portrait of B.” 2008. Silver Gelatin Photograph, 5”x7”. NFS. |
RP:
What is it that you are most eager to convey through your art/ how do
you want the viewer to receive or interpret or your art?
CBA:
I’ve overheard people talking about my photographs and their reactions
to the work are almost always way beyond anything I could ever imagine. I
am humbled by most of their interpretations, and I try to humbly
present my work as a result. If I am “eager” to convey anything, it
would be something like, “Look what I found. See something the way I
experience it.” I even choose non-pointed titles for most of photographs
to avoid directing the viewer’s attention one way or another. What
attracts me to make a photograph is private to me, and the same holds
true for the viewer.
RP: What is the best thing about St. Louis for your art practice?
CBA:
William Carlos Williams wrote, “The local is the only source of the
universal.” That sums up perfectly why I am most happy when exploring my
hometown of St. Louis. I can always ferret out scenes and places to
photograph. I love shooting other cities, like New York, Los Angeles,
and New Orleans, but I am just as excited about finding something to
shoot in a familiar St. Louis neighborhood as I am in those other
places.
 |
| CB Adams. “Windowsill" 2020. Color Photographic Print on Glass, 21.5" x 28.8", $175. |
RP: Is there another artist that has influenced your art and how?
CBA:
If you asked this question every day, I would probably have a different
answer, depending on what I’m reading, what I’m watching, and what I’m
experiencing that day. I do have artists whose work I regularly revisit,
and those include Sally Mann, Keith Carter, Wright Morris, and Vivian
Maier. I’m limiting my answer to photographers, but I’m also influenced
by others such as the multi-talented artist David Lynch and the
Mississippi writer Lewis Nordan. The artists, regardless of medium, that
influence me do so by showing how you can choose to make something from
practically anything. I’m reminded of a recent show at the Saint Louis
Art Museum, “Poetics of the Everyday: Amateur Photography,” which
included some compelling, powerful images – snapshots – made by people
who wouldn’t have considered themselves artists. And yet, some of those
images are as powerful as some by Henri Cartier-Bresson or Alfred
Stieglitz.
RP: When did you begin to know what your art is about?
CBA:
I hope I have continued to be a precocious, inquisitive individual who
is constantly striving to create increasingly better art. I hope, of
course, to be able to share my work, but it’s only been during the past
several years that I realize that it isn’t so much about the end-state
of a piece, but rather, the making – the doing – of it. I leave it to
the viewer to decide “what” my work is about, or even if it is about
anything at all.
 |
| STL artist CB Adams at a regional art event. |
RP: What is the biggest challenge with
being an artist and juggling all life throws at you? Also, what do you
find most challenging/rewarding about the creative process?
CBA:
Finding enough time and money! Like most of us, I have a day job
outside of the arts which allows me to support myself. Making my art is
an expensive and time-consuming process, so I consider time and money
precious resources that require constant balancing. Like many
photographers, I suffer from GAS, which stands for gear acquisition
syndrome. I constantly have to temper my “would love to have” equipment
desires with the reality that the success of each of my photographs has
more to do with me than the camera. This is especially true of my
photograph, “All’s Well,” which I created with a Holga, a cheap plastic
camera that costs about $30.
RP: What qualities attract you to other artist pieces?
CBA:
Of course, the easier question is what doesn’t attract me. I don’t like
timid, overly mannered art, or naval gazing for the sake of naval
gazing, or art that tries too hard for perfection to the point of
sterility. Between my own interests, recommendations from others, and
consuming too much social media, it’s hard not to become jaded. I look
at so many Instagram accounts and think “that’s been done before and
done better.” In terms of photography in particular and all art
generally, I’m always seeking a sense of presence – I call it an
undefinable x-factor. A piece with presence can truly “move” me in some
way. It doesn’t happen every day but when it does, it knocks me over.
More specific to photographs, I like work that examines something that
requires special access to a place or a people or an activity.
 |
| Featured in Art Saint Louis’ “Storytellers”: CB Adams. “All’s Well.”
2019. Photograph on Paper, 12”x12”. $250. Artist’s statement: “This
photograph, taken with a Holga plastic toy camera, depicts a street
performer, dressed in a homemade suit spray-painted gold, who shares his
love of Shakespeare. His story may be just as interesting as the Bard's
many theatrical tales.” |
RP: Do you have a studio routine? Most creative time of day to work? Process of thinking or setting up before you begin making?
CBA:
I work in a very ad-hoc manner – when, where I can. That’s partly
because of the need to juggle the demands of a day job with the adjunct
teaching I do, along with my photography endeavors. It’s also because,
as a hyphenated artist, I switch between photographic projects and
writing projects. And, I’m always fighting the impulse to chase all the
“shiny things” that catch my attention and threaten to derail my
concentration.
RP: Do you think that creativity involves
putting your heart and soul into your work? Or is it more like letting
your mind flow freely to witness the surprising results of your actions?
CBA: I’m not sure I frame my artistic endeavors that
way. Certainly, I have intentionality with most of my work. Every time I
press the shutter, I’m hoping that I’ve captured what Cartier-Bresson
called the “decisive moment,” though this is often misunderstood. I
still think developing film and making prints is a sort of magic that I
never tire of, but the reality is that only a precious few photography
capture the sense of presence, the x-factor, that makes a great
photograph as I define it. Putting heart and soul into my work sounds
like intentionality to me, and as frustrating as it can be, most of my
best work was created “on the fly” or as a “one-off” rather than my
planned shots. That’s the most elusive moment for me as an artist, and
it’s a rare gift when it happens.
 |
| Artist CB Adams with one of his photographic works. |
RP: Best advice you were ever given?
CBA:
In terms of photography, the hands-down best advice is attributed to
Robert Capa: “If your pictures aren't good enough, you're not close
enough.” Proof of that is my “All’s Well” in this Storytellers show. My
camera was just inches away from the street performer.
Roxanne Phillips is an artist and art educator based in St. Louis since 2001. She earned a MFA in Printmaking & Drawing from Washington University in St. Louis and BFA in Painting & Drawing from University of North Texas. Roxanne is an adjunct art instructor at Washington University in St. Louis and has worked with Art Saint Louis since 2017 as Administrative Assistant and Installer. From 2018-2020 she was Master Printer for Pele Prints. Her works have been featured in numerous exhibitions throughout the St. Louis region including at Art Saint Louis, Crossroads Art Studio & Gallery, and St. Louis Artists’ Guild. Her work is currently available at Union Studio in St. Louis. She has served as exhibit Juror for several regional exhibits & art fairs. Roxanne is past Board member of St. Louis Women’s Caucus for Art.
Comments