Christine Sanford

PHOTOS BY ROB BENCHLEY Christine Sanford W hile her creative process involves working with shapes and patterns and is often challenging, Christine Sanford admits it is like being at play.

"I think mainly I enjoy the act of playing with paint, mixing paint and seeing how colors relate to each other on the palette and then on the canvas. For me, I'm more interested in the colors I see next to each other on the canvas and how they evoke an emotional response," she said, sitting among several of her abstract paintings, the style of art with which Sanford is most enamored these days. "I'm not interested in a literal image. Maybe a year from now I'll start painting literal images, but right now I'm not."

Sanford has been creating in a number of different ways since she was in high school and making her own clothes and Christmas gifts. When she was in college in Philadelphia, she shared a house with students enrolled in art school and became drawn to what they were doing. She joined them in painting city murals and crafting costumes for theater performances. When Sanford moved to a rural area she met a group of older women piecing quilts. Though she then became immersed in that form of textile art, Sanford used her own non-traditional patterns which she views as an experience that led her to abstract painting.

Sanford incorporates the drips into her painting. "I love the serendipity of the drip and seeing how it looks and feels, letting the paint lead me rather than me being in charge of how the paint works," she said. When Sanford moved to Nantucket in 1980, she was still focused on quilt making, but found it difficult to locate the unusual fabrics she desired. After meeting the late Hilda Simon who used to have a fabric shop called The Calico Whale, Sanford started buying exotic ribbons from her and using them for layered cloth paintings. Once Sanford became a familiar face in the community and met some of its talented artists, her interest shifted again.

A short while later, Sanford took a break from art to raise her son and become involved in other activities. When her child grew older, Sanford returned to her love of textiles but after taking drawing and painting courses at the Artists Association her passion for paint on canvas grew.

"The same way I fell in love with quilt making, I was really excited about painting. The more I painted the more I wanted to paint. I began exhibiting, and now I'm totally devoted to painting. It's endless."

During the first two years of her professional career, Sanford created loose interpretations of Nantucket landscapes, but her deep inspiration from textiles and antique quilts resurfaced. Women, who produce so many of those products, are also inspirational to her; however, Sanford has high respect for the work of Mark Rothko and Richard Diebenkorn, both famous abstract painters. Asked whether she believes women approach abstract art differently than men, Sanford said she does not think of her colors or compositions as gender related.

"If anything, my compositions come from Peruvian textiles," she explained. "Lately, I've been thinking that my paintings are paint weavings in some way."

Sanford begins new pieces with NPR broadcasts or opera recordings in the background as she applies an undercoat of acrylic to build texture. Next, she squeezes blobs of oil paint onto her palette to decide which shades attract her at the moment, then layers the paint until she develops colors she feels resonate next to each other. She enjoys painting ball forms and always has a ball theme in progress, but recently has taken a liking to dripping paint and its effects.

"I love the serendipity of the drip and seeing how it looks and feels, letting the paint lead me rather than me being in charge of how the paint works. I have a great time. I'm just excited to come down [to my studio] and see what I did yesterday and if it worked, and what I'm going to do to make it work more.

"I'm always trying to connect my head to my hands and my heart. That's big for me in my paintings. Art is really emotionally and mentally fulfilling and challenging," she said. "I think about painting all the time and I never get tired of looking at paintings and talking to other artists about art. Art is such a broad word. I believe in the art of everything — the art of cooking, the art of living — but narrowing it down to painting, I'm really glad that I found painting and am able to pursue my painting in the way that I want to. The process is what makes me happiest. When you are here and now, nothing else matters." I