Alright – so today we’ve got the honor of introducing you to Samantha Sanders. We think you’ll enjoy our conversation, we’ve shared it below.

Alright, Samantha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. How did you learn to do what you do? Knowing what you know now, what could you have done to speed up your learning process? What skills do you think were most essential? What obstacles stood in the way of learning more?

I forage for and create plant-based inks, that are used in the works on paper I make, along with watercolor and collage. I first became interested in plant-based ink-making in late 2019. I wanted to remove synthetic paint from my practice, like acrylic, and make paint out of natural materials, like black walnuts, avocado and onion skins, and goldenrod flowers. I liked how the material connected me to the land. For example, most of the black walnut ink I make comes from a black walnut tree that lives on my parents’ property, that is hundreds of years old. So much of my work is informed by the natural world around me, so it feels good to have the earth physically a part of my paintings.

I learned how to forage by looking for plants and researching how they’ve been used historically. Some plants are better for ink making than others — don’t use fruit or berries, as the color fades away quickly. Foraging is a seasonal process, I can only collect black walnuts for ink-making in late September through November. If I make a weak batch of ink (light in color), then that’s it until next year. The key to my success is learning how to forage for enough materials and develop a reliable ink-making recipe. Anyone can do it, the process of making paint by hand is thousands of years old. It’s the most timeless thing, and I love it. I have a studio blog on my website where my ink-making recipes live. I’ve been working on a goldenrod flower ink recipe for three years and I’ve finally figured it out. I’ll soon share it.

Samantha, 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 name is Samantha Sanders (she/her), and I’m a 30-year-old artist living and working in Philadelphia, PA. In 2018, I received my MFA in Fine Arts from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts in Philadelphia, PA. Pennsylvania has always been home for me. I grew up in Central Pennsylvania, which is well represented by the imagery I depict in my artworks. I currently balance a very creative full-time job (I work for a Zoo!) with an active studio practice. Luckily, my workplace inspires the art I make and vice versa.

My artwork explores grief, environmental fragility, and my rural Pennsylvania upbringing, through the use of plant-based inks that I forage for and create, which I incorporate into paintings on paper with watercolor, gouache, and collage. In conjunction with the paintings, I also make small graphite drawings on paper that delve even deeper into the world around me. Moons, butterflies, flowers, spider webs, and Pennsylvania German folk art often function as otherworldly icons and motifs that accentuate the mystery and majesty of the people and places I’ve known. In my more recent works, I advocate for native species and urban wildlife and explore my experiences with gardening. I transform images of flora and fauna into fragmented, dream-like narratives of preservation, reflection, and timelessness. In doing so, I seek to bridge the ever-growing gap between humankind and the natural world.

Recently, I developed a new body of work, of over 30 graphite drawings, that I’m very proud of! Drawing has always been a part of my practice, and it’s exciting to bring this new body of work to the forefront. I consider my paintings and drawings to be equal, and I hope to show them together in the future. As for right now, I’m showing 8 graphite drawings mounted on panel for the first time at Monaco Gallery, in St. Louis MO. The show opens on June 28 and runs through July. I’m also developing a new series of paintings, made exclusively with handmade black walnut ink. I’m excited to see where things go.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Resilience for me, is being able to adapt my studio practice to each phase of life. Be it a move, a 9-5 job that takes a lot of energy, a lack of inspiration, family matters, and so on. Evolving one’s studio practice is essential for creative survival. I’m not a full-time artist, so I’ve learned to embrace the hours I’m afforded in a day to be creative and make the most of them. In graduate school, I was making 5′ x4′ oil paintings. Then I graduated and moved into a 300 sq ft studio apartment, that I lived in for 3 years. I immediately had to change the way I made work. I quickly learned that oil painting was better left in the past. So I went back to my undergrad roots and started making small works on paper. By doing so, it radically shifted my painting style to what it is today. I got interested in making plant-based inks because I wanted to spend more time outside and challenge myself. My materials were all well suited to a lifestyle of tight living spaces and long work shifts. I found that having limitations pushed me out of my comfort zone. I feel like I know my art practice to its core now, after years of shifting, flexing, and moving, through all of life’s moments. I’m at a place where I have cultivated my style and built an entire world of iconography, and I can keep building and building upon it.

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

Over the last two years, my focus has shifted toward making work that advocates for pollinators, like bees, moths, butterflies, and native plant and animal species. I have an urban garden that I’ve been growing for three years. It’s my favorite little place. I grow native plants, like purple coneflowers, mountain mint, and milkweed. I also grow food to eat. I love seeing butterflies, birds, squirrels, and other creatures engage with the wild space that I’ve carved out for them (and me), in a mostly concrete environment. The plants I grow are intentional and so is a lot of the conceptual thought behind some of my paintings and drawings, to focus more on conservation and climate anxiety.

I’ve made paintings about the plight of the monarch butterfly (they’re now an endangered species), the importance of grasslands, and my admiration for urban wildlife, like opossums and pigeons. All these different kinds of animals, insects, flowers, and so on, become recurring icons in my paintings and drawings. Some pieces are abstract while others are straight to the point. Butterflies and other icons can have multiple meanings, personal or ecological, both things can exist at the same time. The goal of my paintings and drawings is to encourage others to take a closer look at the world around them.

Contact Info:

• Website: https://www.samanthalsanders.com
• Instagram: https://samanthasanders.art

Image Credits

Samantha Sanders