Laura Sanders

1.  How are you and where are you?

I am here in beautiful, but currently steamy, Columbus, OH. My husband and I are working from home and doing well. In the beginning of the stay at home orders it was strangely the same for me. I previously worked from home, my studio is in our garage, so besides taking extra precautions when going out, my daily life has been mostly unchanged. As time has gone on, I really miss seeing people. Working alone as I normally do, I wasn’t aware of how much I needed the social interactions of meeting friends or going to gallery events. And of course I really miss seeing art in person, so I am happy things are beginning to open up.

2.  What is your routine?

The first few hours of the day I am usually trying to finish chores, write emails, eliminate anything that may interrupt me while I am in the studio. I then paint until dinner at 6pm or so. This time of year I am also planning photoshoots that will become the basis of future paintings so some of my days will be out in the field, so to speak, creating images that I will compose into paintings later on. I am guilty of not having too many boundaries between work and life with the exception that I am very protective of the daylight hours. I do not work well at night and need the daylight to paint by so I try not to plan anything in the middle of the day.

3.  Is this a creative time for you, do you find inspiration these days?

Yes. I am painting and creating new work. I did catch the pandemic gardening fever, and I am trying not to let that interfere too much. As for inspiration, the pandemic produced it’s own fodder for contemplation, but now with the protests I find that ideas I had previously begun to pursue have gotten knocked around and challenged by today’s events. With the continued heartbreak of lives lost to racial injustice coupled with the encouragement I feel that so many have risen up against it, there is a lot to process and to do!