Wisconsin based, Jackie Sanders is a long time artist and photographer. She grew up around makers; her father is a woodworker and musician, and her mother would sew, draw, paint, crochet, and owned a kiln to fire ceramics. Jackie used to watch her grandpa in his workshop, and her grandma making tiny dolls clothes on her sewing machine. Creating was, no doubt, in her blood from the start.
Jackie has always been interested in all types of art, experimenting in a variety of mediums including drawing, painting, metal, clay, and photography. She graduated from UW Madison with a degree in Art Education in 2005. She comments; “Teaching shows you that you can know alot and very little at the same time. ‘You learn something new every day’ has become a mantra for me. It’s ok to be a beginner, to not know something, to experiment and try something new.” A few years later, she returned to school to get her photography degree at Madison Area Technical College, graduating in 2011. Jackie made her career as a commercial photographer for over 10 years until the birth of her daughter in 2021.
At UW Madison Jackie took her first printmaking class, and though she found the process interesting, it wasn’t until she found Speedball Art’s speedy carve blocks almost 15 years later that printmaking became a truly enjoyable experience for her. Jackie became engaged to her long time partner in 2019 and the couple decided to have their wedding on the beach in Costa Rica. She wanted to create a special gift for their guests; a small print of monstera leaves. “Little did I know that this simple act would set me on a path. I quickly fell in love with the act of carving print blocks, a calming and therapeutic act that I could do while listening to music, watching movies, or, most recently, keeping an eye on my small daughter. Rolling the ink on the block and seeing how the print came out gives me a similar feeling of excitement that working in a darkroom and seeing a print develop did.”
Jackie’s prints have an illustrative quality, a bit organic in nature. She’s inspired by and interested in a variety of subjects; music, architecture, folklore, humour, and all things quirky and beautiful. She grew up playing in the woods by her dad’s house and always had a respect for the animals that made it their home. On walks with her husband and daughter Jackie picks up leaves and nuts, and photographs flowers and mushrooms to later inspire drawings and prints. “I’m fascinated with the way nature is perfectly imperfect, the balance between light and dark, organic shapes, the night sky and constellations,” says the artist.
“Lately I’ve been really inspired by the curiosity of my 1 year old daughter. She is endlessly interested in everything. She’s learned to say ‘what’s that?’ as she points at something. It’s made me look at the world in a whole different way. I have this dream to illustrate a children’s book that I can share with her one day.”
Jackie’s process start with drawing in her sketchbook, something she’s trying to make a daily habit of. Recently, she’s started bringing her sketches into Adobe Fresco, a digital drawing programme, to flesh out aspects of her prints; “Having the use of layers allows me to experiment with colours, contrast, and how detailed areas of overlapping shapes will look in a final print.”
Jackie lives in Appleton, WI with her husband, young daughter, and their two dogs. Jackie loves walking, finding new coffee shops and exploring, travel, photography, reading, and working on rehabbing her and her husband’s vintage camper.
www.sandandembers.com
@sandandembers
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