We were lucky to catch up with Frau Sakra recently and have shared our conversation below.

Frau, appreciate you joining us today. Do you wish you had waited to pursue your creative career or do you wish you had started sooner?

I came to art late, but I don’t regret for a moment what I did before transitioning to art. I had a 15-year career in publishing in New York City. As a book editor, I learned to do picture research and immersed myself in the subject matter of the books I was working on. Those experiences have carried over into my art practice and are invaluable to me now. I had a child, whom I had a wonderful time raising with my husband, artist and set designer Daniel Saks. Our now-grown kid, Kira Saks, is about to enter their senior year at Rhode Island School of Design and is already selling their own art and zines. The saying “You can do it all, just not all at once” sums up my life pretty well. We all juggle multiple things all the time, but doing things well requires focus, which can mean giving certain pursuits a lot of priority now and saving others for later.

Frau, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?

My real name is Thea Saks. Frau Sakra, my artist name, comes from the German word “Frau,” which means “Mrs.”, and the Czech word “Sakra!,” which means “Dammit!”. My main focus is creating oil paintings or ink-and-watercolor art for galleries. Occasionally I do illustration. I call my business Frau Sakra’s Pit of Ink because I work in ink and also because I love the line “She is fallen into a pit of ink” from Shakespeare’s play “Much Ado About Nothing.” In the play, a father says it about his “ruined” daughter. I want to defy shame by creating works of art that push the envelope. Some of my art is surreal or whimsical in a light-hearted way, but most of it has an edge.

I love creating art that tells a story, either fictional or nonfictional. A lot of my work features historical figures–for example, Typhoid Mary, Burke and Hare, Edgar Allan Poe, Rasputin and the Romanov family, the iconic LA mountain lion P-22. I focused strongly on history for a few years. Now I’ve expanded my work to include folklore and stories from my imagination. The year 2024 has been my busiest ever! Since my last interview with CanvasRebel I’ve been offered two more featured-artist shows at galleries, and this year’s calendar has been packed with group shows, both online and in brick-and-mortar art spaces. I’ve self-published one comic book that’s now selling in some stores, and I would love to do more.

Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?

I had to unlearn the idea that without certain training I could never be a pro. By the time I got serious about art, I’d been out of college for years and was working as a book and scientific journal editor. I took a few classes in ink, colored pencils, and watercolors, but I’m self-taught in oil painting, which is what I’m doing most of the time right now…so my technique consists of using materials I’ve learned about from artist friends or art supply stores, learning new skills I need by watching artists I know or YouTube videos, and looking at lots and LOTS of paintings by other people. Ten or so years later, I’ve developed what my family and friends say is a unique style. What’s funny is that I don’t see my own style because I can’t see my own work from “outside” the way other people can.

Learning from experienced pros is fantastic, and it’s great to see oneself as a learner and try what other people define as “best practice.” Some tried-and-true art practices are hundreds of years old—definitely worth a look!—and there is great value in learning foundational methods and then building on them. I think that must give depth to an artist’s technique. But we can also learn valuable skills simply by following our natural curiosity. With the growth of social media, there is more sharing of art practices than ever, by artists from all walks of life who have tried all kinds of materials.

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.

A lot of non-artists don’t understand why art costs so much. A painting can take months to finish—I worked on my largest painting off and on for over ten months! And the planning includes picture research, drawing thumbnails, sketching and erasing over and over, color studies, and finding the right materials for the project, which all together can sometimes take as much time as the actual painting. The real hours that go into a work of art often aren’t accounted for in the price. I know this from my own experience and from talking to other artists.

Non-artists (and a few artists too!) have also questioned my choice to do what looks to them like “unsellable” art. If I hadn’t been lucky enough to find the galleries and artists’ communities I belong to now, I might still be hearing the voices of some others in my head telling me my work isn’t marketable. I used to hear “No one would hang that on their wall” all the time. Now I sell weird art regularly. In fact, being accepted as the artist I really want to be has made me feel more accepted as a human being, and while my art still leans toward the shadowy and the strange I also create work with lighter, more hopeful themes…and I think that’s partly because I’m happier and less anxious. Today there are plenty of collectives and galleries devoted to outsider art and/or the artistic bending of propriety. In fact, it appears to me that the more we push the envelope, the more we expand what’s sellable and increase sales for all artists.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://frausakra.com
• Instagram: @frausakra
• Facebook: @frausakra
• Youtube: The Bleeding Encyclopedia
• Other: Linktree: Linktr.ee/FrauSakra

Image Credits

No image credits applicable.