Sally Russell’s bold florals, are so big the canvas can barely hold them. Gestural and expressionistic, they continue to flow off the canvas. Other works — landscapes and figures lean here and there. A vase of poppies nod on the table next to Russell’s small, French plein aire painter’s easel.
A new, wall-mounted easel holds larger oils, all of them vibrant and wearing bold bright color – especially red – a color Russell is known for.
While we visited, Russell’s three clownish Shih Tzu dogs scuffled and tumbled around on the floor, immediately aware of when they became the subject of conversation.
Russell has a little ranchito out on Llano Quemado where she raises chickens, turkeys and goats, although the goats have found a new home “down the road,” she said. She’s cultivating a nice crop of lavender and this spring, someone may be setting up bee hives on the property.
Russell, a woman with warmth and personality, is energetic and positive.
She’s celebrating the new year and the new space with a new 2010 calendar, filled with colorful and expressionistic paintings of subjects from her life.
Like so many people in Taos, doing one thing or having just one job is not enough. Besides the farm and the artwork, Russell works at Libby’s Salon as a hair stylist. With lots of experience working in the fashionable salons of Venice, she brings her experience and her personal panache to her work at Libby’s
Russell also operates the Inhale o2 Oxygen Bar, located right next door to the Mandalla Project, which used to be situated in the Farnsworth Gallery before they closed earlier last year.
Russell confessed to just dabbling in art earlier in her life, but when she lived in Venice, Calif. She said she took the occasional art classes, She said she didn’t really get serious about art until later. Then, she realized she needed some fine art training.
“I needed to learn the formal things like perspective, foreshortening, and other basics. I needed that formal training.” She graduated from Otis College of Art in Los Angeles, along with art workshops in California and New Mexico.
These days, when the weather is warm enough, she’s liable to be painting outside or in the new figure study group that has begun at the studio. With so much to do, it’s easy to see how Russell has managed to live like one of her canvases — bright, bold, lively and larger than life.
NOTE: Written by Melody Romancito, this article originally appeared in Tempo, the arts and entertainment section of The Taos News.
