An Interview with Sarah Patnaude

4/3/21

By Clio Thayer

 Can you tell me a little about your senior project? 

I’m doing a series of paintings based off of my cat — my love for him and the unconditional love I get back from him. I plan on using an impressionist/post impressionist style. I plan on varying the sizes from the biggest at 30x25 to the smallest at 2x2. I’m setting myself a big goal of hopefully 10. I have two semesters plus winter break but I feel like I’m going to hit 8. 

Do you usually do animal portraiture?

The first three years here I was trying to learn as much as I could in different mediums because I’m also going into art education. So I was trying to learn as much as I can so that I can teach it. I didn’t really have an artist voice and this year I’ve been trying to find it. I’ve done ceramic work, film and digital photography, oil paints, drawing, basic sculpture; I came in doing acrylic from high school. My high school had the shitty acrylics you can buy from Walmart with the apple on them. When my first teacher said we were only using oil paints I was so excited I dropped 200$, not even on the good stuff. Really, oil painting is my love. 

What got you into art education?

Since I was two or three I wanted to be an art teacher because I loved drawing and I loved the concept of teaching. When I was watching Elmo I would sculpt with these styrofoam things.

What have you discovered about your artistic voice?

That I really don't care what other people think about my subject matter. When we had to do still lifes I was really good at it and people asked why I didn’t do that. I don’t find enjoyment in it. At this point I’ll do what I enjoy and if people like it and buy it, all the better. If I go home after my senior show and take all my pieces with me, that’s fine too because I’ll hang them. As long as I’m happy with it. Especially going into art ed, I don’t wanna live off my art I don’t see myself doing that. Maybe I create five to ten good pieces a year because I’ll be teaching. And maybe people will buy it, maybe I’ll show it in a gallery, maybe I’ll do some commissions but I don’t see myself making a career out of painting and I don’t think I’d be happy doing that. [I wanna focus on] teaching and learning about art and techniques. Freshman year I felt like I knew nothing but I still feel like I don’t know much, there’s so much more to learn.

What level do you want to teach?

I’m getting certified in k-12, right now I really just wanna find a job. I enjoy the older kids, highschoolers are great because they can give you feedback but the little kids are great because they’re so receptive. They’re like “You can turn your pencil sideways and you’ll get more surface!?” they don’t even say surface. The older kids will say “you can do this, this and this” and they’ll go “this looks great!” There’s really pros and cons to both.

What artists have inspired you?

From the beginning of high school, Van Gogh, I just love his stuff even if his figures don’t look correct. I just love his textures and his colors. Right now I’m looking at Louis Wain and his cats, he does very psychedelic cats. Cats as people, doing people things and he does them very wide faced with flower eyes and patterns. There’s Theophile Steinlen who does older still life animals, specifically kittens and cats. That’s what I wanted my art to look like a couple years ago but now I want it somewhere closer to a Van Gogh portrait of a cat than something super realistic.

What does your studio look like?

I have three walls set up. One of my walls is inspiration, I have a bunch of paint set up in a palette test and older paintings I have done. My other two walls are canvases I have primed and want to put into my show because I want the blank space to stare at me like “you have to fill this.” It’s kind of intimidating. I keep thinking I should bring some of them home, I brought too many. It’s really hard to do work at home because I live in a basement with my parents. They redid their basement and I’m really big into having natural light so it’s really unmotivating to paint there so I try to go to the studio. Over break I’m planning to take my parents’ camper with a heater and do some work in there. 

How far do you think you’ve come since the beginning of college?

I would say on a scale from 0-10, ten being oh my gosh I’ve improved so much, I’d say an eight or nine because freshman me would be so proud. Even the way I look at things now has changed. I have a creative direction that I know that when I leave school in the spring I won’t be lost and floundering. I feel like I’m this close to being able to show in a gallery. I’m working on business cards and a website.

 How do you see your work engaging with people?

Especially with my senior show, I really hope people connect with my pieces by thinking of their own pets as loving and caring because I think there’s something very special about the connection between a pet owner and their pet. Your pet sees you 365 days of the year and doesn’t judge you or [if they do] doesn’t say it. So I really hope people have that tender loving connection but also find my pieces beautiful. I hope when they look at it they actually think “she created” and not think it was any instagram artist.

How would you describe that style or quality?

I’ve noticed when [drawing] people tend to usually do a  line and they’re done. I try to be painterly and sketchy with my strokes — using less paint but looking like it's more, leaving that brushstroke in. I don’t wanna go classically smooth. I wanna go semi-realistic, I don’t think I could do paintings that look like living beings, because I feel like that ruins the point of painting, you could just go take a photograph at that point. You gotta know that it was created by a human. Nobody’s perfect so your painting isn’t going to be perfect. You’re going to see my paint bristles in my paint. 

How do you feel like the community at school has impacted you? 

I feel like having the artistic environment has helped me grow as a person and an artist. Even before the merger, I was always longing for more, more interaction with more artistic people. Now with the merger, it feels like we just have more interaction with bureaucratic people than artists. Hate to be that person, so it makes me feel like I have to make my own connections instead. 

What advice do you have for underclassmen?

For specifically art education students, it’s been a struggle to get everything I needed to do to go student teach but if you’re really dedicated to being an educator it’s 110% worth it. In art school, the biggest thing is how much you put into it. Show up to class, do the work, it’s all to make you better and at the end of the year if you look back you will have improved if you’ve done what you’re supposed to do even if you think it’s poppycock.