After 30 years as a clinical psychologist in Vermont, Sally Loughridge decided to refocus. In 1999, Loughridge and her husband moved to South Bristol, Maine, where she went to work, full-time, detailing and examining marine and coastal landscapes uninfluenced by humans.
She insists this current phase of her life is not a “rejection” or a “break” from her professional career in Vermont, chuckling and intrigued when asked whether she thinks it odd that a psychologist doesn’t focus on (or even show evidence of) humans in her art. Rather, painting and a firm belief that “you can make anything,” whether a successful psychology career or a plein air pastel, have been constants in Loughridge’s life since childhood. The progression, she insists, is completely logical.
“My mother was creative and instilled in us the belief that you could literally make anything, and there was this expectation of creativity and accomplishment,” says Loughridge.
The artist’s latest creative accomplishment, Coastal Edges, opens March 21 at Archipelago Fine Arts. This show is the culmination of a project in which Loughridge explored various sections of the Maine coast and found that while there are common geologic and natural features that identify the coastline as “Maine,” these features are hardly constant. Rather, they fluctuate according to light, weather and their location along the 5,300-mile coastline, resulting in an edge that Sally describes as “far more than a perimeter…a three-dimensional encounter of sea volume and land mass enveloped by the atmosphere in myriad variation.”
Loughridge’s focus upon capturing “those transitory and transformative moments,” and her use of soft-pastels — a medium she describes as “a great way to show light, and spontaneous but also forgiving,” — enables her to capture the brief and often unusual alignment of elements that offer a unique perspective upon the landscape and catalyze a reexamination of the subject for both viewer and painter.
“Painting is what I want to do. It centers me and enables me to see the world and to think about the dilemma that the world is facing. I am worried for Maine and its coast and its people, and I wanted to honor the coast and its natural elements.”
Loughridge also honors the coast by her involvement in the artistic community through teaching.
From 2002 to 2007, she taught at the Round Top Center for the Arts and will be teaching a workshop through the Farnsworth Art Museum on June 5 and 6, as well as a plein air class in Camden later this summer.
“I learn through teaching, it helps me be more conscious of my own steps, techniques and I love seeing the students grow as artists,” she says.
This introspection organizes a very intrinsic and emotional approach to painting. Again driven by the belief that you can make anything, Sally prepares her own canvases — high-density foam core brushed with an ever-varying mixture of marble-dust and binder — and mounts her own paintings. Soft pastels require layering rather than mixing to achieve color, allowing flexibility and, in combination with the uneven distribution of binder on the campus, a painting that develops over the course of the project.
As Loughridge describes her art, the lessons she’s learned from teaching and her new focus on painting: “there’s always room to grow.”
“Coastal Edges,” a show of approximately 21 original new paintings created with soft pastel on prepared panels by Sally Loughridge will be shown at Archipelago Fine Arts, the Island Institute’s lobby gallery, from March 21 to June 28. An opening reception will be held on March 21 from 5 to 8pm, with refreshments and a chance to meet the artist.