{"id":55641,"date":"2025-01-29T14:25:05","date_gmt":"2025-01-29T14:25:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/peraltafinancing.com\/entertainment\/art\/for-93-year-old-painter-and-sculptor-jo-sandman-portland-museum-of-art\/"},"modified":"2025-01-29T14:25:05","modified_gmt":"2025-01-29T14:25:05","slug":"for-93-year-old-painter-and-sculptor-jo-sandman-portland-museum-of-art","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fivemor.com\/?p=55641","title":{"rendered":"For 93-year-old painter and sculptor Jo Sandman \u2014 Portland Museum of Art"},"content":{"rendered":"


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Sandman\u2019s career is getting a second wind as an independent curator finds new homes for her artworks<\/h3>\n

December 23, 2024
By Cate McQuaid<\/strong><\/p>\n

Originally Posted in the Boston Globe, read it here<\/a>.<\/p>\n

As a restlessly experimental painter and sculptor, Jo Sandman has worked for seven decades \u2014 a marathon.<\/p>\n

Recently, her career been getting a second wind. Since 2018, Sandman has partnered with independent curator Katherine French, former executive director at the Danforth Art Museum, to sift through artworks stored in her Somerville studio and find homes for them in collections.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe inventoried it, took pictures of everything,\u201d French said. \u201cI said, \u2018I\u2019ll do outreach to museums, but there\u2019s no guarantee.\u2019 I know how hard it is getting things through a collections committee.\u201d<\/p>\n

But the committees have been receptive. French estimates that the effort, called the Jo Sandman Legacy Project<\/a>, has donated up to 2,000 works to roughly 50 museums.<\/p>\n

\u201cMuseums have been taking 30 pieces, 40 pieces,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

More than that \u2014 they\u2019ve been mounting shows. Since 2020, Sandman has had four solo exhibitions. Another, \u201cJo Sandman: Skin Deep<\/a>,\u201d opens at the Portland Museum of Art in February. She has a piece on view in \u201cTender Loving Care, Contemporary Art from the Collection<\/a>\u201d at the Museum of Fine Arts through Jan. 12, and in the forthcoming \u201cBetter on Paper: Recent Acquisitions of Prints, Drawings, Photographs, and Books<\/a>\u201d <\/em>at the Davis Museum at Wellesley College.<\/p>\n

Where to find her<\/strong>: www.josandman.com<\/a><\/p>\n

Age<\/strong>: 93<\/p>\n

Originally from<\/strong>: Newton<\/p>\n

Lives in<\/strong>: Lexington<\/p>\n

Making a living<\/strong>: \u201cI did a fair amount of teaching,\u201d Sandman said, at Wellesley College and Massachusetts College of Art and Design, and her late husband, Robert Asher, helped support her.<\/p>\n

Studio<\/strong>: Paintings, drawings, sketchbooks, and materials still fill walls and storage units in Sandman\u2019s 1,800-square-foot studio at Brickbottom Artists Building.<\/p>\n

French pulled a tube off a shelf and opened it. \u201cThis is the paper that she was using,\u201d she said. \u201cI actually have to open them up and go through them because some of it\u2019s art and some of it\u2019s just paper.\u201d<\/p>\n

How she started<\/strong>: Sandman\u2019s mother painted. Growing up, \u201cthere was always that promise of artmaking going on,\u201d the artist said. \u201cMaking art was like breathing,\u201d<\/p>\n

At 20, she spent a summer at Black Mountain College<\/a>, an avant-garde liberal arts school in North Carolina. Classmates included Robert Rauschenberg and Cy Twombly. Her experience there \u201cmade very clear that living the life of an artist was not only a possibility, but a reality,\u201d Sandman said. \u201cThat it was my destiny.\u201d<\/p>\n

What she makes<\/strong>: What hasn\u2019t she made? Glyphs collaged from remnants of old tarp drop cloths or written with caulk; snaking sculptures crafted from plaster-stuffed radiator hoses; drawings on paper made with wood-burning tools.<\/p>\n

How she works<\/strong>: A new gesture, method, or material would often take Sandman somewhere. \u201cI wanted to explore new territory,\u201d she said. \u201cI didn\u2019t carry the burden of what I\u2019d already done with me.\u201d She still folds fabric and draws.<\/p>\n

Advice for artists<\/strong>: Nothing about making art is sacred, Sandman said, so mix it up. \u201cFollow your own impulses and don\u2019t be dragged down by what other people think or what other people do in art-making,\u201d Sandman said. \u201cBut try to be original in your own way.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n