Rougette Gallery
Sandy Bart Heimann
copywrite Rougette Gallery
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Sandy Bart Heimann's creative projects are the interesting culmination of two parallel passions coming to an intersection: holistic nursing and art. As a young woman she was drawn to both nursing and art. She first pursued an RN (University of Buffalo) and very quickly returned to school for a BFA (University of Houston). Sandy’s talent got her into galleries right away and she has shown steadily for the past 30 years in galleries too numerous to mention. Eventually Sandy came to study with a European Master printer who had come to the United States to be the first technical director of Fine Art Lithography at Tamarind with June Wagner. She also apprenticed with Professor Horvack --the kind of artist one never, ever referred to by his first name-- learning the intricacies of stone lithography for 4 years. Later went out on her own to start her own fine art lithography business. Sandy laughs at the memory of people coming to her business and "shocked to find this little woman!" The equipment was so large and physically demanding that at times she had to throw her whole body onto it. Sandy had a reputation for the development of special silkscreen techniques which resembled the finer details of stone lithography consequently her fine art editions were in demand. Sandy describes the process as mentally and physically demanding:
"it’s When asked what it was she liked so much about her work Sandy says that she was drawn to the funny shapes. "They were fascinating, I enjoyed them, I liked the abstract shapes. I liked the figure, but I really enjoyed these!" Sandy is a part of that generation of women which had already
married and started having children when the Women's Movement
began. Yet, in 1979 during the
International Year of the Woman when the Equal Rights Amendment
was failing to get anywhere in this country, Sandy proudly
participated in a symbolic carrying of a torch from Seneca
Falls, New York into the Houston, Texas Astrodome. She had
been running long distance and signed up to carry the torch for a
segment in Texas-- she reminds us that there was a section of the
path which came through a fundamentalist area near the border of
Louisiana where the torch was boycotted; a marathon runner had to
run 19 miles of the journey by herself.
Sandy says after a life taking care of family and a running a demanding business, "it's wonderful to be able to wake up begin the day writing every morning for 3 hours and painting in the afternoons, to have the inspiration from dreaming, that fuzzy threshold" which is ripe with meaning just waiting for Sandy to garden. Sandy believes she wouldn’t be painting her current
works were it not for her
experience with stone lithography. Sandy begins
her paintings with what she calls an "energy line".
She had learned to let these lines go where they want and
noticed how they were very similar to the lines in her garden.
Drawing lines...the
shapes begin to take form, they seem to call for certain colors when
she's ready to start painting, and eventually, much like the funny
shapes she learned to hold mentally when printing lithographs, "the
story comes out, and then all of a sudden the title. For more information on Sandy’s workshop schedule and the upcoming publication of her book "Tides of Time: the Sacred Feminine, Patriarchy, and Creative Expression", please feel free to contact the gallery.
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