December Artist of the Month – Samantha Eio
Samantha Eio is a landscape artist and works mainly in acrylic and watercolor. She is originally from Northern New Jersey, and went to college at Syracuse University School of Architecture. She was an architectural designer in Boston for about seven years before moving to Natick, where she lives with her husband, two daughters, and goldendoodle.
TELL US A LITTLE ABOUT YOUR BACKGROUND
I have always loved drawing and painting and wanted to be an artist. My parents both painted at different times in their lives, and they taught us the excitement of making art, using your hands to create something new, and proudly showing your work as an expression of your voice. 
Growing up, I almost always had my hands on an artistic project, and that was when I was most happy. Yet, I was concerned about making a living as an artist. So, I went to architecture school to pursue a creative career with seemingly more stability. I will forever be thankful I did. I learned many valuable skills there – problem-solving probably being the most useful. The ability to see an issue in a multitude of different lights and to recognize that there is more than one way to tackle a project is actually comforting. This means there is no wrong answer; many possible solutions and potential outcomes exist.
While I could be creative during my time in architecture, it was often shrouded in a need to be exact. My heart ached for a chance to create freely without the worry that everything would come tumbling down. And so, after leaving architecture when my daughters were born and staying home with them for a few years, I started finding time to paint again. The more I painted, the more I had to paint.
WHAT DO YOU PAINT?
I search for beauty in everyday places – often, it’s a forest trail where I like to run or hike, beaches I love to spend time on in the summer, or local outdoor spots I visit often. I avoid painting buildings as I fear I will never get it right because of all the details. And I avoid painting people because that involves detail, too. For some reason, detail has come to equal restriction, and I am trying to avoid that. The places I find most interesting are those familiar to me – those I’ve spent more than a few hours moving through – consciously and subconsciously taking in all the details. When I paint, I am trying to capture the essence or meaning of those places.
I consider the following questions when deciding whether to tackle painting a place:
- What about this place might capture someone’s attention?
- What shapes, lines, or patterns do the clouds make in the sky?
- What is the shape of the space of the place? Or what forms do the areas in between objects make?
- What is reflected back at you in a river, a stream, or wet sand?
- How does one move through the site? What else is moving through and around the space – light, air, leaves, water, etc.?
WHAT IS YOUR PROCESS?
Photography plays a huge role in my artwork. I love taking pictures – setting up a shot, finding interesting lines within a composition, and trying to capture light. If I don’t have time to paint but need to be creative, I will go for a walk and take pictures. I use photos for reference when painting. Working from photographs to create my artwork allows me the freedom to paint at whatever speed I need to, to revisit a moment often, and to have a guide – but I don’t find it necessary to paint exactly what’s in a photo. Sometimes, I worry I use photography as a crutch, but it has become integral to my process and how I see things. I have tried working from imagination, but my imagination doesn’t work in the way that I can picture a scene and recreate it. I need an image to keep me focused and remind me of where I’m going with a piece.
WHY DO YOU PAINT?
For me, practicing art is less about becoming a famous artist and more about the need to create. Art is my therapy. These are ways I find art therapeutic:
- It is a form of expression when I don’t have the words to say what I need to.
- It is a creative outlet, a method to stay balanced.
- It is a method for healing from grief or working through grief.
- It is a form of movement – almost like dance. Sometimes, emotions are so overpowering that I need to move through them – art is an outlet for this.
- It allows me to be loud and expressive when I am usually soft-spoken and introverted.
- And it is a form of control. When the real world feels too much, I can control the world I create on my canvas or paper.
When I paint from a place of trying to heal, my work is more moving and authentic. Art is not only therapeutic for the artist but also for the viewer or collector. Nothing means more than when a collector tells me a painting of mine calms them or brings a sense of peace, too.
WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NEXT?
I have a few commissions I will be working on over the next few weeks. I used to fear commissions, finding it hard to connect to the subject. Feeling disconnected from the place I’m painting makes it hard to understand and depict it well. I’m working through this, and commissions are becoming easier to tackle. Also, as life becomes more hectic and there is less time to paint, having commissions gives me a reason to stay focused and goals to work towards. Also, a few of my paintings will be in the Illumination Exhibit at Gallery Twist in Lexington this December.
IG @samanthaeio_designs