08.23.2007
Artist spotlight: Terry Sargent
 |
Last week, the Artists’ Corner featured nationally-known artist Dee Beard Dean. Now, read more about her daughter, Terry Sargent, who paints beautiful oils out of her Davidson studio.
Sargent describes her style as similar to her mother’s, but said she considers it more “simple.”
Here are a few excerpts from our conversation last week:
Tell me about how you got started.
I started eight years ago when my mom, an artist and teacher, invited me to attend a workshop on Kiawah Island and I just thought it would be fun. I wasn’t planning on painting that much. I ended up just really enjoying picking up the paintbrush again. I hadn’t picked up a paintbrush since college. It was just so much fun, it felt so … freeing, I guess. I had all these creative juices I hadn’t been using in years, or had been using another way. I was doing some interior design work, other creative things, painting furniture, I made lamps and sold lamps. I’ve always had these creative juices but now it’s fun to just direct it all into the painting.
I know you painted early on with you mom. How did that influence what you’re doing now?
Well, I think what it did was, it just created the freedom to not be afraid to try, because I’d done it when I was a kid. As a child, you’re so much freer in your creativity. Because I kind of had that foundation, it didn’t scare me to start all over again. … Mom taught me so much when I was a kid, I didn’t realize I had it all in here. So when I started again, it all started coming back to me, all my drawing techniques and color and perspective, all that came easier to me because I had that foundation as a child. ... I tucked it all away until the time was right. … My boys are almost grown and I can be free to go and paint wonderful places and paint during the day, when otherwise I would have been tied up with them. As I go through life I don’t see things the way that I used to. Now that I’m painting everything I look at I look at as a painting. It’s funny. When I look at the beach or even a field, I see it as a painting.
Has it made you appreciate the landscapes and everything you’re seeing more?
Oh, much more. Much more. I see shadows; I see things I never would have noticed before. Now it just comes alive and I see it in brushstrokes and colors and shadows and perspectives. And my mom is like that, too. We’ll be driving along and she’ll say “Pull over!” She carries her camera with her all the time and she’ll start taking pictures of something I might not have even noticed. It’s just interesting how artists see things in an artistic way.
So how are you involved with the local art scene? I know your mom was saying you’re pretty well-known locally.
Well, somewhat. Just the little art shows that I’ve done and I was in another shop, a wine shop in Mooresville, I got a lot of exposure that way. I had my art in Bebe Gallini’s (in Cornelius) for a long time so people got to see my art that way.
Sargent’s work can now be found at Fiore in Davidson and she can be reached for more information and inquires into commission work at (704) 892-2425.