Sandy Oppenheimer:

Painting with paper

Sandy Oppenheimer: 00:17
Coming from here, where I was very, very much influenced by the Renaissance and the Baroque and all that opulence and detail, I love that stuff. But in Japan, I found this economy of stroke, that less was more, that the muted palette was fantastic, and everything changed for me. I had this incredible shift, and I had an amazing, amazing experience there, and I never turned back.

Sarah Monk: 00:49
Hi. This is Sarah with another episode of materially speaking, where artists and artisans tell their stories through the materials they choose. Today, Mike and I are returning to Pescarella Studios near Pietro Santa to meet Sandy Oppenheimer. Sandy first came to Pietro Santa because her husband John is a marble sculptor. However, a life changing trip to Japan gave her space to develop her own art and set her off in a totally new direction.

Sarah Monk: 01:18
Sandy calls her work painting with paper, and we find her in a large studio space calmly taping collages onto the wall for a pop up exhibition she’s staging. These collages feature fruits, wine bottles, and inviting cups of cappuccino with a froth you can almost taste. I notice a 3 d effect on wooden spoons which she’s created with different shades of paper. On another piece, a tower of coffee cups leaned so precariously, I want to reach out and save them. Beside her is a table heaped with plain and patterned papers arranged by color.

Sarah Monk: 01:55
She tells us about her paper, her techniques, and a series honoring notable women. First, we ask Sandy to introduce herself.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 02:06
My name’s Sandy Oppenheimer. I paint with paper. I use collage in a painterly fashion. And I’m from Northern California, born in Pennsylvania.

Sarah Monk: 02:18
So why collage? What attracted you to that as your material?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 02:22
I started my visual artistic journey as a ceramicist. I met John, and we came to Italy. And when I got here, I wasn’t interested in being inside in a ceramic studio. I wanted to be out in the landscape because it really felt like it was a landscape of my soul. I would take a big piece of watercolor paper, rip it into 16 little pieces, and go out, and I knew nothing.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 02:47
I knew nothing about perspective or value or all I knew is that I loved what I saw and I wanted to pay homage to it. And so I would do, you know, a laundry line, a window, always a zoom lens kind of view of things. And I’d come home and I would let John critique me, which it’s amazing we’re still together, but I did. I, you know, I really believe in good critique. A person that will say what is wrong and tell you the solution, not just say that’s wrong, that they would help you through, and he was very generous with that.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 03:19
And so I did that for a while, and then we had to leave for a short period, where John is finishing up a piece on stateside. And we lived in the trees behind a mixed media artist, and I watched her work. And I saw her take a big roller, like a paint roller with house paint, and white out things that didn’t work in her piece, and then she would staple on a piece of fabric or sew on something. And I thought, that looks like fun. And I took all these very precious first watercolors that were all pretty bad, but, you know, because watercolor’s a very unforgiving medium.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 03:54
But I said, okay. They’re honest. They’re the best I can do with what I have right now. And I started putting pieces of paper on, and I started working mixed media. And before I knew it, I was simultaneously using both.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 04:11
And about 10 years later, we were back in Italy. Someone told me about this artist in residency in Japan in a papermaking village. And it was a paid gig. It was for 3 months, and I didn’t think I had a chance in the world, but all my friends said, apply. It’ll at least get you organized or get everything at that time on a CD.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 04:32
And so I applied, and sure enough, I got in. So off I went for 3 months to Japan, which was absolutely life changing. One reason is because I was out of the family unit. You know, I was no longer John Fisher’s wife. I was no longer Allegra’s mother.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 04:52
I was just an artist doing her thing. So that was great. A real sense of freedom. Secondly, coming from here where I was very, very much influenced by the renaissance and the baroque and all that opulence and detail, and I love that stuff. But in Japan, I found this economy of stroke, that less was more, that the muted palette was fantastic.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 05:18
And everything changed for me. I had this incredible shift, and I had an amazing, amazing experience there. And I never turned back. Our job was to use their paper. Italy is to marble.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 05:31
Japan is to paper. I put down my brushes. I picked up some scissors. I bought some glue, and off I went because I could do everything I could do with paint. I could play with color value, but I had this added joy of texture and pattern.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 05:45
And as long as I got my values right, I was free, and I found it to be just joyful, just playful, just forgiving. It was wonderful. You know, watercolor, you have one chance. This was like, okay. It’s not right.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:00
No problem. You try again.

Sarah Monk: 06:03
Can you tell me a little more about how special Japanese papers are? I don’t know about them.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:07
Well, because their sense of design is incredible and their kimono patterns. They also make into paper. And they’re incredible paper makers. The paper in themselves are made from mulberry. And still in the old technique, they cook the mulberry and pound it down.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:24
And, you know, I don’t know if you’ve ever made paper. It’s a really wonderful process. I don’t make my own paper because they do it so much better than I will ever be able to do it. Their just sense of design is so timeless.

Sarah Monk: 06:36
So is it the texture of the papers that

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:38
make It’s the texture and the patterns.

Sarah Monk: 06:40
Yeah. They’re already printed? Is that

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:42
They’re silk screened, most of them. So they’re just beautiful. Just beautiful.

Sarah Monk: 06:48
And talking about coming to Pietra Santa, can you tell us a little about what the community here has been to you?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 06:57
Well, I was the odd bird out. I came 9 months after John. You know, I hadn’t seen him in 9 months. We started our life here together. And, you know, the first day out, he’s taking me for a walk around the marble yards.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 07:10
And I’m thinking, I had a different idea of how to spend our first day, but, you know but I grew to love the stone, and I grew to love the material. I have tried carving. I enjoyed parts of it, but I could see that it was not for me. I didn’t like the dust. I didn’t like the noise.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 07:28
I didn’t like the fight. I learned a lot from being around sculptors. I learned about volume. I learned about shadow and light, how things fall. I am able to make 3 d on a 2 d surface.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 07:44
I am not good at looking into a 3 d surface and seeing the form. You know, John would call me over and say, do you see that? No. I really don’t see it. You know, I just don’t see it.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 07:56
So I found my way.

Sarah Monk: 08:00
So may we go back and ask you about your childhood? You mentioned Pennsylvania.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 08:07
I grew up in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania. 1st generation. My father was from Germany and he fled. My grandparents perished in concentration camps. And so very, very early on, I understood the cruelty that exists in the world.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 08:26
And I remember my father was a very wise man. He was not a bitter man. He was a grateful man. And I would ask him our time together was Sunday mornings because he was a traveling salesman when I was young. And I’d get up very early with him and we’d read the New York Times or the Pittsburgh Post Gazette, and then we would talk about current events.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 08:47
And it was very, very special for me. And I used to ask him even, you know, back then, you know, why do people kill? Why do people hate? Why is there war? And he said to me, and I’ll never forget it, Sandy, it’s always been that way.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 09:05
Unfortunately, it’ll probably always be that way. He said, like a painting, there’s shadow and there’s light, and your job is to work for the light. And that had a profound influence on me. And to this day, that’s what I want to present in my work. When I go to a museum, the things that move me, that I remember most, are things that make me feel and things that make me feel more alive.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 09:34
And in my life, that’s what I choose, things that make me feel more alive than numb.

Sarah Monk: 10:01
I wanted to ask about some of the series of works that you’ve done that mean the most to you. And one of the ones that I’ve noticed was that on your birthday, you do a portrait. Can you tell us about that?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 10:16
Both John and I do a portrait on our own birthdays. And I can’t even remember when we started, but decades ago. And it’s sort of a game where you can do it on your birthday or a few days before your birthday, any medium, and you can spend as little or as much time as you want on it. I find that it’s a really wonderful way to spend my birthday. My birthday is a very anticlimactic day, January 2nd.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 10:45
The party’s over. No one’s drinking anymore. Nobody’s eating sugar anymore, so I really don’t celebrate it. I celebrate it quietly. And it’s a time of reflection.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 10:56
I’m able to think about the year where I’ve been and also think about my hopes for the future, where I hope this next year will go. I do it in front of a mirror, and it marks the day in a way that’s really special.

Sarah Monk: 11:12
And have you compared the ones over the years?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 11:15
Yeah. Some of them are pretty intense, and some of them are very joyful. Almost everything is a reflection, a self portrait, even a still life, because you’re putting your heart and your head into it, and it reflects you.

Sarah Monk: 11:31
So when you look at maybe 3 years ago, can you feel how you felt that day?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 11:38
Yeah. It floods me with memories. I remember in the one I did during that 1st year of isolation and COVID, you know, I did it with a mask on. So I’ll always remember that. This year, I have this holding a bird, and I titled it still hopeful at 71.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 11:57
Because, as bleak as things are in the world, when I speak with young people, I’m hopeful. I’m hopeful.

Sarah Monk: 12:07
And what other work of yours would you like to talk about?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 12:10
Well, I have a series of notable women that I have been doing for decades. It’s my lifelong project. And I started it here, and I started with visual artists. I decided I would do 12 in each category. So I thought about visual artists that inspired me.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 12:28
All these women inspire me just in their tenacity and their courage and their, you know, can do attitudes that they kept going even in the worst of times. I mean, I think when a young artist talk to me and ask for advice or whatever, I just said, just don’t give up. People have this idea of their romantic life. And, yeah, from the outside looking, it’s very romantic, but you give up a lot being an artist. For years, a lot of comfort, time.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 12:56
You have to be kind of ruthless with your time. But these women kept going and left the world some incredible things.

Sarah Monk: 13:05
So who’s in this series?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 13:07
Well, I have visual artists, actors, writers, and musicians. So let’s see. Some of the writers would be Toni Morrison, I’ve done. Visual artists would be I did Frida Kahlo. I’ve done her a number of times.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 13:23
She’s an incredible subject. Theater, Meryl Streep, music. I’ve done Ella, Bonnie Raitt. I mean, this is why it has to be a lifelong series. There are so many women, and I keep building upon it.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 13:39
I’d like to do some political activism, science, you know, just every everything.

Sarah Monk: 13:44
Have you got your eyes on your next subject?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 13:47
My next series is gonna be the women artist of Pietro Santa. And I’d like to come back for perhaps, you know, 6 to 9 months and do them. And I would like to leave it to Pietro Santa. I think it would be lovely. Just like what you’re doing, it’s sort of a chronicle of the history of what’s going on here.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 14:04
It was a cauldron of creatives. It still is, but 30 years ago, there were even more people here. And I read once in the New York Times. It was great. It was about this group of writers in Princeton, and the last line was, if one of us make it, we’ll be remembered as a circle of writers.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 14:26
If none of us make it, we’ll be remembered as a group of friends who love to write. And I thought, that’s us. You know? We are people who love to make things with real materials, and I think it needs to be recorded. And I’m glad you’re doing it.

Mike Axinn: 15:01
Is there an event in your life, aside from the story with your father, which was wonderful, that was transformative for you, that has informed your work?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 15:10
Yeah. The birth of my daughter, certainly. You know, you’re both parents. It’s irrational the way your heart opens when you have a child. It makes no sense.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 15:21
It bursts open. And the other biggest time was helping my mother pass on. That was also a big heart opener and with a different result, but very similar to giving birth.

Sarah Monk: 15:36
Do you have any advice for your younger self?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 15:41
Learn about financial investment. You know, I mean, we’ve gotten through our lives. 2 artists and no trust fund is not a great thing. You know? When we had our child, you know, some mornings, I would wake up.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 15:59
It was like, I was panicked. I said, this is reckless living. We have a daughter. I have no way to make a living here. And John, much to his credit, would say, get into your studio and work, and I would.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 16:15
And once I was working, I forgot about our life worries and I forgot about the worries of the world, which is still the true. And but it’s not for everybody. I mean, I understand why people do give up because you have responsibilities. You have to pay the bill. I mean, John and I have lived very simply.

Sandy Oppenheimer: 16:35
We’ve never owned anything. That was advice given to us by a older artist couple here, and they just said, keep it simple.

Sarah Monk: 16:45
Is there anything else you want to add?

Sandy Oppenheimer: 16:47
Do what you love, you know, and and do it with all your heart and mind. I tell people, I’m no different than you. It’s not that I have great talent. I have good work practice, and that’s what I learned here, how to work. Because everybody got up in the morning, and everybody showed up, and we put in a full day of work, and that’s what it takes.

Sarah Monk: 17:15
So thanks to Sandy. You can see her work on her website, sandyoppenheimercollage dotcom or on Instagram at sandyoppenheimer. As always, you can find photographs of the work discussed today on our website, materially speaking.com, and on Instagram at materially speaking podcast. And thanks to you for listening. If you enjoy materially speaking, please join our community and sign up to our email newsletter on our website.

Sarah Monk: 17:42
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