BIO
Patricia Saxton has spent a lifetime crafting all things art and writing. Exhibited widely throughout the New York/Philadelphia metropolitan areas before moving west, Saxton is an equally accomplished painter, illustrator and graphic designer. Creative director of design firm Saxton Studio, she is also the author-illustrator of an inspirational design book (52 Weeks of Peace) and three best-selling children's books (Book of Mermaids, Book of Fairies, Book of Dragons). Her approach across mediums is both intuitive and disciplined, with an eye for detail and a spirit of originality using a palette that reflects a deep sensitivity for light and color.
A New Jersey native and graduate of Wittenberg University, Saxton currently resides in Sedona, Arizona.
ASKING AN ARTIST TO TALK ABOUT HIS WORK IS LIKE ASKING A PLANT TO DISCUSS HORTICULTURE. [JEAN COCTEAU]
I could tell you stories of how some paintings come to be (sometimes swooping in like a sudden storm, sometimes a quiet, persistent nudging). I could tell you how free it feels in the sweet-spot moments of creation. I could talk about colors, or the thrill of late afternoon light. But I can't tell you why I may choose to paint a pear or a pot or a sky or variations of a horizon line. There are symbolic suggestions within subjects and styles - but these are after-things; after-the-fact musings on deeper meanings. In the moment, I can't explain feeling compelled to paint this or that, why I'm drawn to curves and shadows or often feel a slave to my imaginings. It's a mystery of spirit that moves differently in every artist; what feels beautiful or unnerving, what inspires individual expressions and forms unique bodies of work that may touch some hearts and not touch others - after all, art speaks differently to each viewer, and that's all I really know. Spirit moves and you follow. - Patricia
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FROM THERE TO HERE
I wanted to be a teacher. Or an archaeologist, or a psychologist. I wanted to help others and "save the world". I saw life as a great big place with a thousand trails to discover. I thought I might follow one of those trails - with a sketchbook and writing pad at my side, "just because".
In retrospect, it seems my course was set. Written in the stars perhaps?
Raised with gardens and sonnets (my father was a farmer-turned-chemical engineer; my mother a poet), I was a fourth child with time to explore and hand-me-down crayons at the ready. And so it began. Plop little me in a corner with a pens, pencils, paints and paper and I was fairly content.
Fate got a push during an early year living in Europe. My father had a lengthy business assignment in Germany, so the whole family packed up and sailed the Queen Mary towards our life abroad. There my young eyes devoured castles and white-robed alps, tulip fields and wooden shoes, cobbled streets, weathered old signs, and miles of purple vineyards. It was a visual feast, and all the while my mother told me, "remember this". So I did. And I fell in love with wonder.
Quickly abandoning crayons for the finer points of a pencil, my private art school would become a flowerbed, where I might be found studying the lights and darks that made up a rose petal. My school was also found in faces, a salt shaker, a bowl of fruit - subjects were endless. I would practice for hours on end and awards would follow. And sitting right next to the act of honing my crafts was a desire to keenly observe the world around me; to know the behaviors of shapes and shadows and understand the ways of humanity. (I'm still learning.)By my early twenties, three overlapping professions emerged: as graphic designer, illustrator and fine artist. With an AT&T art and marketing stint under my belt and a New York City backdrop, I launched my illustration & design business at age 27, serving a largely Fortune 500 clientele to this day. Between then and now has included more travel, motherhood, teaching, and books getting published. There were yearly get-togethers with Milton Glaser, and there were art exhibitions (including a treasured 9/11 retrospective show alongside notable artists such as Yoko Ono and Ultra Violet). There's been a lot of life lived, some really good, some really hard, and along the way a whole lot of work produced.
Now I seem to have returned to where it all began. A place that might be called art for art's sake - and with it, an insatiable desire to express the mysterious, the ordinary, the magical, the whispered - simply because it wants expressing.The path is often right in front of our eyes all along.
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