December Artist of the Month – Meet John Sherffius

 

Art has always been a big part of who I am, but I never focused on painting until about a decade ago. And, as I soon discovered, whatever artistic skills I learned in the past don’t always translate well to a canvas. 

I was born in Los Angeles, at the tail end of the post-WWII baby boom, and spent the first half of my life in the region. My parents told me they noticed a glimmer of artistic ability early on from my coloring books. According to them, my sense of color and shading was fairly realistic and I could stay within the lines better than most kids my age. Drawing was like a hobby for me throughout my childhood, something fun to do between (or during!) school and homework, sports, TV or spending time with friends. My first formal art classes were in high school, where I took beginning life drawing and graphics courses. Though I generally did well in those classes, I had no clear career path in mind until college, when I began contributing illustrations and political cartoons to UCLA’s campus newspaper. Editorial cartooning was especially fascinating to me because it combined art, history and current events, all subjects I was – and still am – interested in.

 

 

After my college years, I eventually was able to find jobs as an all-purpose newspaper artist, creating maps, infographics, logos, illustrations and editorial cartoons. In time, I was able to pursue editorial cartooning on a full-time basis at papers in California, Missouri and Colorado, and even won a handful of awards for it. And, while my career was progressing, I met my wonderful wife and together we raised 3 amazing kids. It was a memorable period in my life, but after almost 25 years in political cartooning and the newspaper business, I was ready for a change and decided to pursue other types of art. About the same time my family and I moved to Massachusetts in 2012, I began to freelance a variety of graphics and illustrations while also focusing more attention and energy on painting.

 

 

So, despite the constant ‘rookie’ mistakes from this soon-to-be 61-year-old artist, what do I like about painting? Missteps aside, the process of painting itself is very relaxing and almost meditative. And painting teaches you the importance of patience and planning, skills that I am clearly still working on. But, when the stars align and you paint something you’re happy with, it’s extremely rewarding. It’s no secret that the most successful paintings (think of the masterpieces of French Impressionism) have a special ability to visually capture a moment or feeling in time and preserve it. I like the fact that a great painting can speak volumes, or say nothing at all. Its message can be crystal clear, or a fuzzy riddle. It can be strikingly realistic, or unrecognizably abstract. It can be pleasing to the eye, or simply an eyesore. It can be whatever the artist chooses to create, but also whatever the viewer chooses to see.

The members of this society, of course, already know what makes a painting great. And they prove it at every WSA exhibition. They are all extremely talented artists, and I am very honored to be part of this group.