Conversations with an Artist: Salle Werner Vaughn
I read that your work is about “a world we know exists but can’t really see”–a very surrealist theme. How does this manifest in your work?
I’m not really interested in what it looks like, what it is. Art is not about appearance. When art really touches the soul and vibrates within you, it is something deeper that cannot be expressed.
Do you sketch, or plan out your work?
No, it just flows. I call it the divine flow. I have no preconceived ideas, because for me, it doesn’t work.
Are there certain mediums that you enjoy working with the most (or certain mediums that are most conducive to exploring these themes you are interested in?)
I love oil painting, I love watercolor, I like egg tempera, I like fresco—all that. Fresco is very good because it’s very much like watercolor. I like that it’s fluid. Then so the body, the hand, becomes an extension of the mind. A complete extension, when you’re working and you don’t even know that you’re painting.
How has your personal practice changed and developed over the years?
I’ve gotten better. I’m more at home with the material. When I was young, I was more self-conscious. Now I just let it be completely. But I always let it be. My view of beauty has expanded. It’s gone way out into space, way, way out. All of these paintings are a record of a voyage. A voyage to a beautiful place, that I know is there, but I can’t see, I can’t describe it. And I approach it through the paint, to share whatever it is that I’m feeling.
You mentioned that you thought, “I have to have it” after seeing your Sage for the first time. What drew you to the artist, and to Secret Voyage of a Spark specifically?
Well, it must have been spiritual. Bill Robinson at Blaffer Gallery, now museum at University of Houston was the director, and he showed me the catalogue. And when I saw that painting in the catalogue I just knew, I just had to have it. It was in sync with what I was doing, the painting of mine that is included in your exhibition, I had done prior to purchasing that painting, and I hung them together.
I didn’t know anything about her. It was years later that I learned. I didn’t even research her, I just wanted her.
When considering a work, does it have to ‘fit’ with the rest of your collection, or can it exist on its own?
I just buy it. I just buy it, with pure instinct. If I can muster the money to buy it, I get it. People always say, “I don’t have a place to hang it” and I say well just put it under the bed—you’ll find a place. Don’t be prudent, when buying art, you have to go all the way. If you want something, get it. The only regrets I ever had, was when I thought I didn’t have a way to.