Sandra Jo Hackbarth

It’s All in the Eyes Sun and Dust Gallery, 223 Canyon Road, Santa Fe, NM: The Old Masters rarely spoke to me in my long love affair with art. I lean more to craft, folk, outsider and conceptual art than any of the business of oil paint. Things shifted when I leafed through a gifted book on Italian Renaissance painters with the TV tuned to the inauguration. Suddenly, a vast range of human pain, confusion and fear was mirrored back to me in eyes painted hundreds of years ago. Myself and whole categories of people I love were about to endure our own versions of pain and fear. I wanted to protect those figures; now very human and very much alive. First I gave them helmets built of layers of colored energy lines. I was thinking two things, they might as well be pretty and I personally need to feel the simple joy of a crayon in the hand making line after line. The lines relate to flow, structural ribs, veils, webs, Indira’s net? Gems are found in connection. What am I sorting? How many layers of experience build every human? At first, I worked on the women. Mouths blocked. Later came the loud lipstick, blue eye shadow and flashy nails that I imagine just below the surface of the stoic poses demanded of the men. Queer people have been here forever. You can’t fight fabulous, darling. Sandra Jo Hackbarth (f. Martinez) Co-founder Martinez Studio WI + NM

Sandra Jo Hackbarth (f. Martinez) found sanctuary staring into the void, learning to fail on the potters wheel back in high school. Conceptual art, design methods, outsider, and folk art all nudged her switch to simple materials and automatic drawing to remove barriers to her own practice. Images generated in meditative discovery are then reworked and used in many ways. Some drawings are fleshed out with watery acrylic, dirt from favorite lakes, inks, pencils and crayons. Gifted Tyvek is a favorite substrate. Old books are treated as blank pages, valuing randomly visible words over their use as prompts. A tendency to break things down to make more things from the fragments permeates her process. Confetti cut from failures recharges recent work with a toss. Vinyl decals throw shadows from the glass and heal worn frames. A 2018 United States Artists Fellow, Sandra Jo Hackbarth (f. martinez) is known for decades of weaving designs produced in hand spun, hand dyed wool as co-founder of Martinez Studio (WI + NM). Art you can wipe your feet on brings a healthy dose of irreverence. “I believe every moment we gift ourselves with time alone, in a state of play valued over achievement is a treasure. Creative work offers a welcome taste of agency. Squeeze beauty out of the scrap. Use what you have. Make a mess that even you barely understand. Art doesn’t care what you make it out of, why or how…she just wants to see you smile even from a wiggly card table, far from north light.

2-D, Collage/Mixed Media, Drawing, Fiber Arts, Painting (all materials)