spotlight: Frank Sanford

The KAVA Newsletter, Autumn 2023

Frank Sanford, painter, has lived in the Burren, County Clare, on the west coast of Ireland for over 25 years. Born in West Virginia, USA, in 1943, he lived mainly in the North Western states before eventually settling in Ireland, where he found the freedom to paint full time.

This summer Frank invited two of his students to choose a selection of paintings for his forthcoming exhibition in KAVA, which they named ‘To Be Perfectly Frank...’. This interview by Lorraine O’Rahilly and Dympna Kennan, was part of their process of choosing paintings to be exhibited.

When did you start drawing and painting?

In school in the 50s, I was dyslexic, (and ADHD, but they didn’t know about that then), so I was put at the back of the class with pencil and paper and told to shut up. Ironically that helped me to focus! I also had drawing lessons at home for some reason. I remember this woman would show up and we would draw on newsprint with charcoal. My grandmother, Two, was also very creative. She cooked, gardened and made beautiful quilts and I adored her.

I always loved drawing and painting, but was expected to get a degree in something I could make a living in so I went to architecture college in Cincinnati. That was actually very good for me because we did life drawing and other drawing classes and history of art and I was interested in all of that and did really well. Then I went on to the University of Oregon and also did a stint in The Art Student League in New York, which was totally inspiring.

The part of architecture I enjoyed was drawing the conceptual designs of the buildings. I used architecture as income. Then I went off at the weekends to do what I wanted in the wilderness. Where I lived in America was quite conservative and I didn’t have the depth of experience to say I’m in the wrong place, so I worked as an architect and people saw me as an architect way more than as an artist.

I didn’t move to Ireland soon enough!

How do you approach painting?

I’ve always believed that I ought to be able to paint what I want, the way I want and how I want. When walking a trail I don’t want to know too much about it, because I want to explore and find out about it that way. Painting is the same. I don’t know when I start what’s going to happen. I like being spontaneous. I want to explore different ideas. I don’t want anyone telling me what to explore or how to explore. I want it to be fresh. To be an adventure. That keeps my interest up. I just paint and respond to what is around me and see what happens. When it is good, it’s a surprise. It’s like some other energy in me. When I get a certain amount of gratification from it I enjoy doing it and then I want to do it again. There are moments when I hyperfocus and experience a really good day of painting and I feel like I’ve accomplished something. If things aren’t going well, I can feel really depressed about it. Why the hell can’t I do this?

Spontaneity to me is important. There are people that are planners, who do lots of research before making decisions. I don’t paint like that.

I’m always trying to improve. Sometimes what I do goes beyond my expectations and that’s a bit of a thrill. I like to invent things. I like to solve problems and do something unique. It’s like when you’ve been trying to knock a nail in the wall with your hand and you discover a hammer. I find ideas and mediums that make things better for me, by experimenting. I don’t paint out of my head.

When I see myself repeating myself I try to change. In delivery, your brush will go to a colour you don’t expect. You’re looking at something and it’s yellow. But then your brush goes to red. That’s just where it goes. It’s almost like somebody else in you is painting. Why did I grab that colour? I didn’t mean to do that. And you think: that’s great…or horrible!

How do you create space to paint?

For me it’s about getting away from everyday reality. I love my trips to Cill Rialaig (Artists) Village, (founded by Noelle Campbell Sharpe), near Ballinskelligs in Kerry. I’ve been there 3 times. I go on my own and do what I want. That is pretty dreamy. There is no stress, no pressure, other than what you create yourself. You have that space to live like that for 2-3 weeks. I also go off in my campervan for a week or so and paint and that is great too.

Who inspires you?

My heroes are the old guys. All dead over a 100 years! I don’t copy them. I learn from them. I appreciate them. I relate to their philosophy. It was about being true to nature and being true to themselves. All the famous artists from the 1920s onwards either went to and/or taught in The Art Student League of New York. It is at least 170 years old. It was huge.

It is the kind of school where you just sign up with a teacher and go into the studio and paint every day for 4 hours. The teacher only shows up one day a week. It’s 90% painting and 10% instruction. You learn a lot from other people, as well. It’s about being a master. It’s about learning to be yourself.

They are not teaching you to copy the masters. They are teaching you to use the masters to get better. To discover who you are as a painter. You need more painting time and less instruction. Of these masters I studied with in New York, I remember one said, ‘Warm darks and cool lights’. I wrote it down. Those 4 right words go through you. Another teacher said to me ‘Frank, white is not your friend.’ and walked away.

Most of the students were older. I was 35 at the time. Sometimes you need to pare it back for people. Less instruction. That can send you in a new direction.

I take that ethos into my class when I’m teaching. When I take out the books to show you in our class I am trying to open up possibilities for you. Every artist, present and past, has something to teach you. You just have to figure out what it is. And it can also be about teaching you not to do something. That is really important. Your job as a painter, as an artist, is to break rules and experiment. Nobody has the right to tell you how to paint.

There is only one rule, and will only ever be one rule when it comes to painting and it will never change, and that is: just paint! Most people think they can’t do art because their expectations are too high. You can learn technique. But you need to practise.

How easy or difficult is it to make a living from art?

I’ve never really figured it out. I hate all that marketing stuff. I’ve always liked the fact that it’s people like myself who can afford to buy my paintings. My base has always been ordinary people.

How do you think other people see your work?

I find it hard to see my own work. I don’t have a scale to evaluate it by.

It is always insightful hearing what other people think of my work. One woman said, ‘You don’t look at Frank’s paintings, you look into them!’ To me that means you are really looking into them and not just identifying the object. Everyone looks at paintings from their own life’s experiences. If you look at a painting of an ocean and you have been in a storm at sea, you will look at that painting based on your experience. People look at my painting from their point of view and go into them from there. In my opinion it is more important to do your own thing, even if it’s not marketable, than to paint something marketable that is poor. I would be embarrassed to go into someone’s house and see something that I hated, thinking I sold that bad painting to someone.

Another thing that often happens to me is that people say ‘We liked your painting when we bought it, but we loved it even more after a year’. For some reason people like my paintings more after they have ‘lived’ with them for a while.