We were lucky to catch up with Bryan Sanders recently and have shared our conversation below.

Bryan, thanks for joining us, excited to have you contributing your stories and insights. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I had the most creative and loving mother. At an early age I started drawing. She saw my passion and continued to support it through her entire life. Somewhere along my path, creativity left me. It just wasn’t there anymore, so I did what most people do and put it high on a shelf. While I continued to have the dream, I did nothing to pursue it. It still felt like too much of a reach.

Bryan, before we move on to more of these sorts of questions, can you take some time to bring our readers up to speed on you and what you do?

My current call to action actually happened quite by accident. After a 30 year hiatus from art, I picked up a pencil one afternoon and started drawing. Lines, shadows, texture, and movement flew out of me. This huge drawing just happened and felt so good. I was energized again. I realized it was my voice to the world and I had not been speaking for a long time. My husband Brad came home after work and saw it on the table. He hadn’t seen anything creative from me in our 18 years together. He picked it up, gazing at it as a tear rolled down his cheek.
“You have to go back to school.”
I was enrolled into college for the next semester. It was time for a BFA.
Shortly after completing my first semester, Brad was diagnosed with colon cancer and died 90 days later. While he is the reason I do what I do today, he never got to see me paint.
This chapter lasted 19 years.
What my art business today provides, not only for me but for others, is the ability to see the emotions we carry and the process of expressing them. With the use of male images in portrait style and narratives, I chose each one to release an emotion or state I am in as I ebb and flow along the path of grief. The ability to pick up a pencil or brush and release to the universe what you are feeling— is amazing.
As this chapter began, I realized that I offer, not only portrait commissions, but the opportunity for others to learn the benefits of art therapy as well. Teaching my craft in a classroom setting has given me the opportunity to share my knowledge and help others along their journey in life. It’s very rewarding to see the changes the student goes through as we progress through a painting or drawing. I think how my classroom approach is different is it about expressing your feelings while moving the media around. If you are angry, show it in the energy of the stroke.

As this new life started I have to say there are two things I am most proud of. I have not been painting for very long, but I knew I wanted to truly apply myself to this challenge. It takes time to master a new skill, so I found my discipline fast. I picked up a book one afternoon by an artist Carol Marine called “Daily Painting.” In it she broke down the 10,000 hour rule so well that I applied it. She states: ” Paint small, paint often. Get to 500 hundred paintings as fast as you can. At 501, throw the first 500 away.” It sank in. The painting this morning was 1115.

The second would have to be the birth of a collection called “The Silly Selfie Project.” In 2018 after much ebb and flow of grief, I decided I needed to feel joy. I reached out on social media to all of my friends and asked them to send me “expressive” selfies. Shock, surprise, extreme laughter, anger—- any emotion they wanted to express. Tell me a story in the image. Selfies flooded my inbox. I painted 85 as fast as I could. Today I relaunch this collection as “The Silly Selfie Project: Reloaded.” They will be bigger, brighter and more in the language of my ‘pop-art’ style.

With all this being said, I think the reader can see that the “Butch and Manny” brand, (This was our nicknames for Brad and myself) is about living life— even in pain, to the fullest. I love men! We are edgy, strong, angular works of art. Art history placed women as the standard fair as subject matter, today I choose to show that men deserve to feel beautiful too. By using images of men, I want to show the viewers that we also have the right to express how we feel. In most of my small daily sketches I portray men in a pose that represents an emotional state that I face, or situation I am in. Beautiful images that allow the viewer to interpret for themselves what they see, and still represent the Butch and Manny brand. I have been asked several times to paint or draw other subject matter such as nudes or sex scenes. While there is nothing wrong with either, having done nudes in the past, I choose my images based on the appeal for myself. Impeccable men with style. While some are shirtless or just in posing trunks, they still represent an aesthetic that is classic in style.

As your reader follows this story, they should know I love to paint commissions in portrait. My style may not appeal to all, but I love to make art that is fresh, loose and very colorful. We deserve to have brigthness in our lives.

Is there something you think non-creatives will struggle to understand about your journey as a creative? Maybe you can provide some insight – you never know who might benefit from the enlightenment.

The concept of a non-creative is foreign to me. What we have in society is creatives that have been squashed. We believe at a young age we must fit in. Get a degree, get a ‘practical’ job, have a mortgage, work for the man you’re whole life and die having never followed your dream. Everyone is a creative! We each have to find it. Draw, knit, write a poem, a novel, short stories. Design video games, make soap, cook, write code…. we all have a creative side, just find it.

‘We are all artists, we just have to find our art.’

If the concept of a non-creative is real, then where they will struggle is with concept that there is no such thing. We all have inside an innate drive to a task that is appealing. That is your creativity. Find it, and make it work for you.

What do you think is the goal or mission that drives your creative journey?

If there is only one message I can send to even just one person, it’s to say… don’t be afraid to be who you truly are. Find your ‘art.’ Express it, nurture it, practice it every day. Even 15 minutes will change your life. We all have struggles. Life is a balancing act, but it’s much more balanced, centered, kind and happy if you follow your true passion. While I am currently not a full time artist, (that will change), to take this out of my life again would change who I am. I cannot imagine not creating. I am more alive today than ever before. Part of me died the day Brad said goodbye, but another part of me heard a call. He was a creative his whole life and while his life was cut short, he was also the happiest person I ever knew. Find your happy!
—-Bryan

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.butchandmanny.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/butch_and_manny
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/bks0726

Image Credits
Chris Davis studios Malc Stone