SARAH SNEEDEN OF CEDAR MOUNTAIN

The building is on Route 276 in Cedar Mountain, at the entrance to Sherwood Forest. It was a cowshed before Sarah Sneeden converted it into “Sarah’s Studio.” Only a few miles from one entrance to the DuPont State Forest, it is most appropriately located for the working studio of an artist noted for her mountain landscapes.

Sneeden frequently takes off for an afternoon in the DuPont State Forest or another location that she may have identified as ripe for scenic explorations. Sometimes it is a mass of flowers in a farmyard; other times it is a picturesque road. Using primacolor pencils, watercolors or pastels, she sketches her thoughts on site. In this way, she records some critical moment of clouds or lighting in a way that a camera cannot.

“Painting on location is like a smorgasbord. You get to choose what you paint,” she once explained to me, “Photography is like being on a diet.”

Armed with the results of her frequent field trips, she spends most mornings in the studio (which has no telephone) working at an easel to create the oil paintings for which she is justly renowned, paintings such as “Butterfly Watch,” a detail from which is shown to the right.

It was forty years ago that this native of Pennsylvania adopted a home in the woods, near her current studio, and began earning a living as a single artist. Her income arises from landscapes (many sold through Wickwire Gallery on Hendersonville’s Main Street and others from her studio) and also from commissioned portrait painting. Just as the artistic merit of her landscapes arises from an eye for the moment in nature, her portraits result from an analysis of the character of the subject. Often she will walk an adult into the DuPont State Forest and take seventy or more photographs of them in a site that she considers appropriate to the individual. She studies young children in their natural environment, their own rooms, in order to uncover insights into the child’s interests. She sometimes depicts toys or other objects, and sometimes just hints at these in her final painted portrait.

For her own pleasure she paints some offbeat scenes, such as street scenes from Asheville’s Belle Chere Festival or Hendersonville’s Apple Festival. These do not sell as rapidly as the landscapes, so her studio is cluttered with paintings that she did for the sheer joy they brought her. Among these are many paintings of circus performers. She loves the circus, and makes a pilgrimage each year to see the Big Top.

It is not only circus animals that she has a passion for. Sometimes family pets are included in her portrait painting. She reports that owners are quite exacting about their pet’s appearance. One woman was painted while seated with her favorite Dalmation. After completing the oil, Sneeden decided that it would be improved by repositioning the dog slightly.

“Have you ever thought of what it is like to move every spot on a Dalmation?” she asks.

Since we are only a few weeks past the vernal equinox, it seems appropriate to end this column with Sarah Sneeden’s recent landscape entitled “Step Into Spring.”

© 2009 Edward C. McIrvine

Arts Spectrum column #427 

April 4, 2009