Meet Sherri Silverman | Visual Artist & Vastu Design Consultant

We had the good fortune of connecting with Sherri Silverman and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Sherri, we’d love to hear what makes you happy.

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?

My art is mostly lyrical and gestural abstraction infused with meditation, following beauty and wonder. I create on paper, panels, and the inside and outside of boxes.

My early work of colorful geometric abstractions and Southwest and Moroccan imaginary landscapes with archetypal images is in pastels on paper. In 2014 I moved into a looser, more lyrical, gestural abstraction that is primarily non-representational with floral/botanical images, calligraphic elements, and a continuation of floating motifs in gouache and mineral pigment on paper and panel. These paintings convey my longterm interest in subtle levels of creation, meditation states, and the capturing of the essence and energy of nature rather than its more exact duplication. I’m interested in expressing the unseen source of creativity and this world, its beauty, wonder, and radiance.

I depict the flow of images inside me, mainly unconnected to contemporary events and history except as a means of uplifting and showing the beauty that still exists within each moment, despite the turmoil, inequality, and troubling events in the world today.

I focus on beauty, the eternal, the blissful because I and we as humans need these to survive, navigate, flourish, and contribute to this world. Instead of reminding you of life’s difficulties, tragedies, and the appalling things that abound, I’d rather my art bring you into the present moment, the timeless, the sublime.

I’m grateful for all the support I’ve received for my art. After I moved to Santa Fe, NM in 1986, a Boston art consultant asked me to send slides, resulting in interest from Fidelity Investment’s corporate curator. I sent the selected pastel paintings, and the art consultant called: “I have to tell you what happened. We opened your crate with a houseguest who got tears in her eyes and said, ‘I have to have these!’” She went on to say: “My husband and I grabbed the third one, and there was nothing left for Fidelity. The Fidelity curator was not angry but was really upset, so send more work!” Fidelity’s curator chose a piece for her own office from that second batch of paintings. That was my first noteworthy collection.

In 1998 my work was presented to the New Mexico Capitol Art Collection board by a board member and the curator. Out of thirteen potential artists, one squeaked in and my work was accepted by a unanimous vote of the board. I was told that all hands went up when asked if my work should be in the collection. The curator had pointed to the first of five pieces she had selected for inclusion, and again all the hands went up, which the curator had never seen happen before. My pastel painting Matthew 15 was installed on permanent display outside the Senate chambers, where it is hopefully enlightening New Mexico legislators. In 1999 I got a commendation for artistic contributions from the New Mexico state legislature.

I love it when my art finds good homes. My work has been in six museum group shows and in solo shows in Florida, New Mexico, and Colorado.
Whenever I learn something about how to build my career or improve my work, I start putting it into action or at least on my to do list. It’s not easy creating a career as an artist. I do my best to be resilient and to learn how to improve my work and its presentation. It takes a lot of baby steps, refinements, and courage.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?

I’m in west Marin County near San Francisco, so I definitely take friends to hiking trails and to beaches like Stinson and Limantour Beaches here in Marin. Dinner at Farm Shop at Marin Country Mart in Larkspur or Madcap in San Anselmo. We’ll go for breakfast at MH Bread & butter in San Anselmo. But mostly I cook for my friends.

And we’ll go see art! Other than my studio nestled against redwoods, we’d go to the Bolinas Museum, a gem in a small coastal town. Anthony Meier Gallery, Robert Greene Fine Art, etc. in Mill Valley. Upstart Modern in Sausalito. Garvey Simon in San Anselmo. Sarah Shepard Gallery in Larkspur. Museums in San Francisco, especially the Asian Art Museum, SF MOMA, and ICA SF. Countless excellent galleries in San Francisco that take days to cover, plus the East Bay galleries. This is a very rich area for nature, art, and restaurants!

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?

My main shoutout is to my meditation practices, which has enriched and healed my life in so many ways for decades. I highly recommend the courses offered by https://artofliving.org

Although my first strong memory from age four is of wanting to show all the prospective buyers of my family’s Atlanta house the paintings I had made on the back walls of my closet, I was never encouraged to be an artist growing up and was mainly involved with academic studies. While in grad school I took a couple of art courses at the Cambridge Center for Adult Education and showed at Botulph Gallery in Harvard Square, but I wasn’t really focused yet.

The person who inspired me to pursue my art is my friend Robin Vance, a wonderful artist in Altadena. In 1985 we both lived in Santa Barbara. I made two pastel paintings on paper on my living room floor that Robin saw and said in response, “Sherri, if you really wanted to, you could be an artist.” That made me light up. That’s when I started listening to and becoming my true self, following my own inner direction.

Website: https://sherrisilverman.com

Instagram: https://instagram.com/sherrisilvermanstudio

Facebook: https://facebook.com/SherriSilvermanStudio

Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2PB3wt8ASc

Other: https://threads.net/sherrisilvermanstudio https://www.artworkarchive.com/profile/sherri-silverman https://pinterest.com/sherrisilverman My Vastu, Yoga of Design, conscious home design links: https://transcendencedesign.com https://instagram.com/transcendencedesign https://threads.net/transcendencedesign https://www.houzz.com/pro/sherri-silverman/transcendence-design

Image Credits
All photos courtesy of the artist Sherri Silverman.