DAAG: INTERVIEWS: SUSAN SARBACK

Susan Sarback has distilled the wisdom of an extensive arts education into a four- stage process for creating luminous paintings. Her method, with a "distinct clarity of intention and process," equally engages seeing, feeling, and thinking. Susan has produced paintings that have hung in galleries throughout the U.S. and in private collections throughout the world.

Drawing from experiences at nearly ten different schools of art, Susan has refined a method of teaching that makes her approach to painting uniquely accessible. She founded The School of Light & Color in 1986, and has since produced a video and written an internationally distributed book, Capturing Radiant Color in Oils. Susan's method is also uniquely versatile. Having trained even computer animators, Susan teaches "a language of color that can be taken into any style, medium, or subject."

When I was 2 years old, I remember being in a baby stroller going through the Brooklyn Museum of Art in NYC. My grandmother took me to see the art. I particularly remember being intrigued by the large Japanese scroll paintings and the small Japanese toys in the gift shop. This was my first fascination with art.

I began my art studies when I attended the High School of Art & Design in New York City. There was an audition process to get into this specialized school. In addition to the traditional academic subjects, three hours per day were devoted to art. Since the school was so close to all the museums and galleries, I was highly influenced by my exposure to great art throughout the centuries.

I then studied at the Hartford Art School at the University of Hartford, CT., where I received my BFA. During those years I also took summer art courses at Cornell University in Ithaca, New York, and the Banff School of Fine Arts in Canada.

After moving to California, I received a scholarship to the Academy of Art College in San Francisco, where I took a number of post-graduate classes. At this time I was still searching for more knowledge about light and color. I then heard of Rudolph Schaeffer, who had a school in San Francisco The Rudolph Schaeffer School of Design. When I studied with him he was 100 years old and had great wisdom and knowledge about eastern and western approaches to design and color. This was a wealth of information that I had not found in traditional art schools. Schaeffer was a designer and not a painter. The knowledge I received from him was about aesthetics and not about the painting process. It was invaluable.

A few years later I studied with a great painter named Henry Hensche at the Cape School of Art in Provincetown, MA. After 17 years of art training, I was able to recognize what a master painter he was. In the lineage of Claude Monet, Hensche was able to paint and teach an experience and a process of seeing and painting. This I had never experienced before. It was the missing piece that I was searching for. This understanding of color was experiential and analytical. It required great perception seeing, thinking, and feeling all at the same time. It was the most difficult approach that I ever tried and the most profound.

Several years later, I received my Masters Degree from Columbia Pacific University. My thesis was on the study of light and color in painting.

I read a short biography of Henry Hensche that stated, "Hensche was particularly captivated by the clarity of light in Provincetown, MA." He considered the light there to be ideal. Is there anything special about the light in California, where you now live?

In coastal Northern California the light is very similar to that of Provence, France. This is where many of the French impressionists painted. The light is clear and atmospheric at the same time. Where I live, in Sacramento, the weather is hot and dry in late spring and summer. Colors are bright and edges are crisp. This light is similar to the light in Tuscany. The light throughout California is quite beautiful and filled with color.

Since I had been studying art for 14 years prior to meeting Hensche, there was plenty of time to study and create in many styles. I had years of traditional drawing, years of abstract painting (including expressionism, conceptualism, and minimalism), and years of traditional painting. I worked in either oils or watercolor.

Abstract art, especially minimalism and expressionism, I found to be very interesting to do. However, after years of creating in this way (in college), I found that I was repeating the same themes, designs and patterns. I felt limited in the experience and wanted more. The challenge of accurate visual perception was far more intriguing to me. Not that I'm a realistic painter, but I like the process of studying the light and the forms that I see. From my abstract years of painting, I learned how to simplify and suggest form and how to design and create pattern and texture. This is very much a part of my painting today.

Your book, Capturing Radiant Color in Oils, and your video, The Difference a Day Makes, in part explain your technique of full-color seeing and your four-stage painting process. In what ways are these techniques totally unique to your own school, The School of Light & Color? And in what ways did your academic experience shape these techniques?

When I studied at The Cape School of Art with Henry Hensche I learned a process that was revolutionary in its approach to color. Hensche was a great painter, but his teaching approaches were not as strong as his painting ability. Over the years I have refined the process so that students can understand and experience this approach to light and color more directly. The approach has a distinct clarity of intention and process. It is a direct way to achieve radiance, luminosity, and the quality of light in any subject.

Throughout my years in art schools I have studied with many art instructors. I learned what worked and what didn't what made a good instructor and what made a poor instructor. I found that the worst teachers gave the students too much freedom and little instruction. Often the teachers used personal taste rather than clear seeing and technical skills to assist the students. The best teachers were those that understood their subject and had a system of teaching.

For years I was searching for this awareness of light and color that I found at The Cape School. I believed that if I was searching there would be thousands of other artists who were also seeking this knowledge. That is why I created The School of Light & Color - to teach what was not taught in traditional art schools a method of seeing and painting to capture the quality of light.

What do you think of art education that leads to a degree versus art education led by teachers such as yourself? What are the particular advantages of each?

Universities that lead to a degree in art are varied in their approaches to teaching. Depending on the institution that you attend, your art education will either be traditional or contemporary. It all depends on the school and the individual instructors. A degree is needed if you wish to teach art at a college or university. The quality of your education depends on your dedication and the teachers that you study with.

I have taught students that have an MFA degree, and they don't know the first thing about traditional approaches to drawing and painting. They were only trained in abstract or conceptual art. They are beginners when it comes to the basics of composition, proportions, values, and perspective. On the other hand, I have taught students with degrees in art who were technically very good.

When an artist studies with a teacher outside of a university, they receive specific training based on that instructor's ability to paint and teach. They are usually there because they are truly interested in studying with that teacher. At the University, students are often there simply to receive a degree and are not as motivated to learn from a particular instructor.

Most of my students are between the ages of 30 70. Some have attended art schools in the past and some are just beginning. After years of living, people over 30 know more of what they wish to learn. They are often more dedicated and value personal training with a focused approach.

In a biography of Monet by Denys Sutton, it is stated that "Monet's perception of nature was not, strictly speaking, instantaneous but more like belated images or photographic time exposures during which the definition of moving forms was partially or wholly obliterated." Would you say that such a description applies to your work as well?

My painting relies on clear color perception. Like Monet, this approach is about being receptive to the light. The only relation to photographic time exposures is the painting of different "Light Keys" the same scene painted at different times of day, times of year, and in different weather conditions.

The perception of color in each painting relates to all the other colors in that painting as well as to the colors in the series of paintings of the same subject. This type of painting is both instantaneous as well as related to other times of day and weather conditions.

You stated earlier that Rudolph Schaeffer had "great wisdom and knowledge about eastern and western approaches to design and color." I'm interested in the similarities and differences between eastern and western approaches to color. Is your own approach more like one than the other?

I'm going to list some of the concepts associated with eastern and then western aesthetics. Each of the points on the list of eastern approaches will correspond to the points for western approaches.

My personal aesthetic approach to art is more eastern than western. However, I use western aesthetics as well. My color approach, based on the French Impressionists, is western. My compositions are generally eastern (like the "Pond Series" and some of my still life paintings). My paintings are refined, suggested, and often unobtrusive - more eastern. But some of the "River Series" may be more western in aesthetics, with one focal point and one or two point perspective.

I would like you to elaborate on how it is that your color approach, specifically, is western. Which of the bullets above apply to your color approach?

My aesthetic approach is more eastern. This relates to my design and compositions. My color approach is Western. Eastern color approaches usually lack the full spectrum and use a limited palette. Often one color dominates and other colors are used sparingly as accents. Impressionism, a Western development, uses the full spectrum and is the basis for my color approach. This is about how color creates form, distance, and atmosphere. Color and light suggest space and movement. In an Eastern approach values -- not color -- create space. Color is an accent.

I learned about your four-stage painting process by reading American Artist's January 2003 interview with you. I read that you edit compositions before you paint until there are no more than seven distinct masses of color. This helps you to create stronger compositions that more clearly reveal color relationships. What is it about the number seven?

I limit my masses to 7 or less. There may be 5 or 6 masses and there is nothing esoteric about the number. I find that the strength of the painting is based on the simplicity of the masses in relation to one another. Henry Hensche taught this, and I believe many great artists know this concept. It's not my invention.

From your interview in American Artist, I also learned that you use no blacks or browns. Do you find that not using these colors is a key to achieving luminosity?

Blacks will deaden a color, and a brown pigment often overpowers spectral colors. I can create very dark and dull colors using the spectral colors as well as colors that appear to be brown. One part of creating luminosity is based on the pigments you use. But that is not the main aspect of creating radiance. Accurate color relationships are what create luminosity and radiance. To see and paint these relationships how much lighter or darker, warmer or cooler, brighter or duller - will create the illusion of a specific type of light i.e., sunny, cloudy, hazy, foggy, etc.

Please elaborate on how you use the spectral colors to create a very dark color without dulling it. An example of how you create a yellow that is very dark yet still bright would be great.

There are about 20 bright colors that can be created from the spectral colors. These are the pure pigments (straight out of the tube) and the mixtures of adjacent colors i.e., yellow and orange. Dark colors can either be bright or dull. For example, ultramarine blue - straight out of the tube - is bright because it is a pure spectral color. However, if you mix orange with that blue it will dull it.

Most of the colors found in nature are not bright. They are mixtures of the spectral colors. These are the more difficult and subtle colors to see and paint. The beginner works only with the bright colors. As an artist refines their perception and their ability, they see and paint the refined subtle colors that some may call dull. Actually, these colors can be quite luminous. When browns and blacks are not used and spectral colors create all other colors, the result is a luminous range of color.

Each color has an inherent value yellow is not dark and ultramarine blue is not light (unless mixed with white). The color does not determine the value. So, there is no such thing as a bright dark yellow, but there is a dark bright blue.

Any high quality brand of oil paint will work to capture the luminosity of a subject. Each artist has to discover the nature of these different pigments and work with a palette that they are familiar with.

I arrange my palette in spectral order. The warms are on the left side and the cool colors are across the top of the palette. This is the most organized and easiest way for me to approach this method of seeing and painting.

It's my understanding that you paint with a palette knife rather than brushes in order to keep colors more luminous and color mixes more accurate. Are there any ways in which you have adapted painting with a palette knife to your goal of achieving luminous color?

I find the knife helps to create layers of colors that are not always blended. The layering of colors helps to allow the underneath colors to be seen. Sometimes that is what I need to create the illusion of light. However, if I need to mix the colors more thoroughly, I can achieve that with a knife as well. The duller the color, the more I need to mix a number of spectral colors. The knife gives me greater control of the color quality.

I usually start a painting with a medium amount of paint and add layer upon layer, mixing some colors more than others. I don't paint very thick because it becomes too difficult to control the color mixtures. On the other hand, I don't paint too thin for this makes it impossible to move paint around and blend with other colors. The amount is difficult to talk about and easier to demonstrate. I'm neither a thin nor thick painter.

I paint fairly quickly at the beginning of a painting and a bit slower as the painting progresses. The knife gives me freedom and control that I do not have with a brush.

I have about three knives. One knife I use 95% of the time. Some artists use many different size knives, but I find that one particular size works best for me.

I imagine that being able to mix color accurately does not necessarily accompany seeing color accurately. Do you teach accurate mixing as well as accurate seeing?

Your assumption is correct seeing and painting are different skills. 98% of my color mixing takes place on the canvas color is layered and mixed directly on the painting. Since color is always relative to the surrounding colors, mixing a perfect color on the palette and then applying that to the painting is not as accurate as applying the paint directly to the canvas.

I teach people this approach and not the traditional color mixing. I show them how to create bright colors, dull colors, dark, light, warm, and cool colors. The mixing is relative to their ability to see the colors. I focus on teaching both the seeing and the painting.

It's my understanding that you use the term "light key" when describing the character of atmospheric light in a painting. When the light key is captured, the color choices and color relationships in a painting will convey to the viewer the time of day and lighting conditions of a scene. How long does it take a beginner to successfully capture the light key?

The "light key" is a difficult subject to learn. When students begin, they start with the easiest light bright sunlight. Clear bright colors are the easiest to see and paint. As you move into cloudy and hazy days, the colors become more subtle. These colors and their relationships are considerably more difficult to achieve.

Depending on the student, the time it takes to learn this varies. Before any painter can get one light key accurate, they need to experience the other light keys for they are in relationship to one another. A good study is to take the same simple scene and paint it under different light keys- making sure that each mass is different (within one painting and between each painting).

To be able to accurately paint the different light keys takes a long time, and there are degrees of accuracy. A painter can get a basic understanding in a few months, but that is just the beginning. There are constant refinements that occur as your vision and skill become better. I don't think a good painter ever stops learning and growing.

I imagine that your having painted abstractly for years has influenced your process. Is thinking abstractly a part of the process that you teach?

All good painters think about shapes and colors. These are abstract in nature. For example, a portrait artist has to think about how various shapes that are spaced correctly will accurately capture the likeness of a person. This is an abstract process. I think always in terms of how shapes and colors accurately relate to one another. If this relationship is done right, the atmosphere and the image will form itself.

In your interview with American Artist, you mentioned that you understood how colors are relative to each other after studying the works of Josef Albers. I read through a book of his, Interaction of Color, in which he provided exercises for teaching students how it is that colors are relative to each other. Do you use any similar exercises to teach your students about the relativity of color?

Albers' approach is great for understanding the interaction of colors. However, this method does not work for seeing color. It works for manipulating color to create an illusion, i.e. overlapping transparent colors. What I teach is based on direct experience with color interaction. It is more experiential and not just analytical. My work is about seeing and painting these interactions; Albers' process was not related to seeing, but how colors interact on a two dimensional surface.

Over the years I have refined the teaching of this method so that students can grasp this approach more clearly. I have done this in several ways:

More handouts with specific points for the four stages of painting, creating volume with color, creating atmosphere and distance with color, tips for painting green in landscape, types of weather, etc.;

I have trained several other instructors to teach a variety of classes including drawing, beginning painting, pastels, color mixing, and we have a number of classes for youth;

You've consulted at PDI, a computer-animation company working with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks production company. There, you trained animators in the use of radiant color. What was is like to apply your methods to an ultimately digital media?

When I trained the animators at PDI, I used traditional mediums pastels, oils. Since I didn't have the expertise with their computer programs, they wanted me to use a medium that I was familiar with. I taught how to see and paint using the full spectrum to capture the quality of light. They wanted to use more color in their landscapes. We went outdoors to paint the hills in Palo Alto. When we returned to the studio, they showed me how they achieve color in animation and then how they can apply what I taught them.

I teach a way of seeing and perceiving light and color. It was their job to make it work in their medium. The approach that I teach is a language of color that can be taken into any style, medium, or subject.

I observe that you paint mostly landscapes and still lifes. How does your techniques adapt to settings that involve human activity, like cities?

This approach applies to painting any subject. In fact, I do paint street scenes often. Since this method is about seeing the relationship of masses of color under a given light (sunny, cloudy, foggy, hazy, etc.), it is irrelevant what the subject is. Still life is the basic study for painting landscapes, portraits, city scenes and any other subjects. With still life, you study basic forms and colors and how they relate to each other. There is a range of bright and dull colors that the eye will perceive more subtly in still life. This is the basic training for painting anything.

Describe the market for your paintings. What is the market like this year relative to past years? How does the market for your paintings compare to the market for other types of paintings (e.g. figurative, solely abstract)?

The market for my paintings is for those that love light and color with recognizable subjects. I have sold paintings to people that live all over the world. My market is not the avant-garde, but may be for those interested in contemporary still life and landscape.

Sales in 2002 was definitely slower than previous years, but I'm finding that sales have picked up in 2003. I generally sell between 3 and 10 paintings each month.

Your work has been shown in galleries across the country and your paintings are in private collections throughout the world. I imagine that aspiring artists would appreciate your advice. What, in addition to the quality of your work, has helped you to become 'known'?

Over the past 10 years, I have written a book that was distributed internationally, had several articles published that I either wrote or that were written about me for national magazines, founded an art school, and taught classes and workshops throughout the world. Public recognition through exposure and reputation will make you successful.

If you stay consistent in your painting approach as well as your marketing methods, you will eventually get known. There are many ways to do this, and each artist has to find what works best for them. Persistent and consistent effort over the years is what will work best.

As an artist I am always working on new themes and more perceptive approaches to my paintings. I continually refine my sensibilities of the basic aspects of art color, composition, drawing, texture, space. I always yearn for a deeper understanding of these essential qualities of light. Since much of my art training was abstract, I still remain interested in formal abstract concepts i.e., bands of vertical and horizontal colors that reveal space and distance. So, my subjects will reflect my thinking.

Some of the new themes I'm working on include street scenes with dynamic compositions and large rocks reflecting in the river. My favorite theme, which I will continue with, is the Pond Series. The horizontal play of algae in light and shadow with the vertical reflections of the trees and sky are fascinating to me.

Jeffrey Koch is a student of architecture at Georgia Tech in Atlanta, Georgia. He hopes to incorporate writing and the fine arts into his future as much as possible. He is an award winning photographer and is currently interested in sculpting. He has edited a literary magazine and is researching for an article about figures working at the intersection of architecture and structural engineering. In addition, he is currently developing a design for a pedestrian bridge in Atlanta.