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 exacting work, you have a limited range of pigments, you have to be very careful and very accurate, you have to separate the colors, decide which colors come first, what the gradations will be, and most of all you have to mentally carry images you’re working with in your head."  Working with 39 to 60 different plates might take a month to complete a printing.   "You have to take the image apart and re-assemble it. I enjoyed the challenge of having the artist’s print be the way I envisioned." Sandy’s reputation for color, her masterful interpretations of artists' paintings, and her ability to stay in budget led to receiving a commission from the Wissily Kandinsky estate to print her interpretation of one the paintings of the great abstract painter.     It should be mentioned that  Sandy ran her business mostly at night while taking care of her family during days.   That’s how it was and sometimes still is for women.   During our conversation, Sandy saw an art magazine that featured the title 'feminist art' on the front cover.   Perusing it while reminiscing about the importance of Judy Chicago’s "Dinner Party", Sandy recalled how putting on dinner parties for one’s husband was considered 'very important' and sometimes one of the few ways women in the same circumstances could connect with each other.   Despite her family responsibilities, at the height of her business she employed several  people, worked closely with artists and publishers to produce prints, and had her own work exhibited.

               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!" 

              Life eventually called in another direction and after 18 years as a master printer Sandy closed her business and returned to nursing.   Although still painting her own work, she made a professional decision to purse a 2-year certification in holistic nursing.   Now living on the coast of Maine  she received a tuition scholarship from the hospital auxiliary and put it to use teaching medical residents yoga, Reiki, stress reduction ("I couldn’t get anywhere with the nutrition!") and bringing Reiki into a local nursing home facility.  With a knowing smile she appreciates that it was the doctor's wives who sponsored the scholarship.

               Her own artistic talent and the creativity inherent in holistic work came together to  pave the way for Sandy to help other people reconnect with their lost creativity.   Sandy has been teaching and giving workshops on creativity for a number of years.   She is particularly concerned with how people loose touch with their creative center and the connection between creativity and wholeness/health.    She has begun a project to study and address the problem -- what she believes is the loss of natural creativity as a result of the rise of formal patriarchy and the diminishment of the sacred feminine.   The book "Tides of Time" will be published as a part of her project as well as her paintings that re-address the lost sacred feminine.                   

             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.  Sometimes the title is  a poem itself".   With characteristic modesty she says, "Really, they paint themselves".    When Sandy is complete with a painting, she will have painted the entire canvas three times, refining the shapes and colors until the story is completely revealed.    "I work with square canvases because I move them around over and over again.".   The result are colorful, natural looking shapes  which become animals, plants, people entwined and dancing with and around each other, in trees, flowers, water, and volcanoes  and whatever else they want to do to tell the story of girls and women long ignored.

                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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