SJ (b. Vermont 1979) is a mixed-media intuitive artist who works primarily in watercolors. Using water in her work is an integral part of her creative and therapeutic process, as it helps her move through emotions in an organic and healthy way. Her work centers around the human experience and our collective connection to nature, with an emphasis on creating dreamscapes to provide warmth and magic to the viewer. She has exhibited work in several major US cities as well as Europe and received the Diderot Emerging Artist grant at Chateau Orquevaux Artist Residency in France (December 2022). She also spent the last two years illustrating her first complete tarot deck, which goes into production in March of this year. SJ currently lives and works out of her small home on a lake in the Pacific Northwest.
"I have been making art to stay alive for as long as I can remember. I didn’t realize the power in making art until my 30s, where I found I could use my artistic voice to help others feel warmth or to lift them up. I spent a lot of my younger years being so angry at the world because of traumas in childhood. Realizing I could channel my emotions in a healthy way through making art has been a huge shift for my mental health, and each painting I create is always dedicated to the dreamers. While I am multidisciplinary, I truly love working with watercolors because I love the flow and collaboration with water. You have to be open and willing to make mistakes and let the water dictate its movement on the paper or canvas. It calms my mind and keeps me present. For me, making art is my therapy as well as my magical practice. It is a special relationship I have cultivated with spirit, after so many years of being afraid to use my voice."
Instagram: sarahjanelamb.art
Interview with Sarah Jane Lambert
How has your upbringing in Vermont and living in the PNW influenced your art?
As a little girl growing up in Vermont, I was completely enchanted by nature. I spent countless hours alone, building houses out of twigs and leaves for the fairies, fishing poles out of sticks to catch fish (leaves) in the rural street gutters. My imagination was wild and full of magical visions. But I feel like it’s a common phrase you hear as an adult—that most of us who were once children can lose touch with the wonderment as we grow older. I loved Vermont, but it was also a symbol of pain. I experienced a lot of childhood trauma, so naturally, when I was in my late teens/early 20s, I wanted to run as far away as possible—which I did—first to New York City (I always say this is where I grew my backbone), then to the other side of the country to California, where I was for 20 years.
I just recently made the move to Washington State last October; I had spent so much time in California and almost equal amounts of time struggling there. It can be a tough place to sustain yourself if you’re an unconventional gal like myself. I suppose I live somewhere within the standard artist archetype spectrum—lots of student debt from college, many unsuccessful attempts at several different careers, marching to the beat of my own drum, always daydreaming—and there had been such a strong internal pull to change my total environment. I love to look back at my time in California for all the fortune it brought me—fortune meaning, the deep connections I made with people I know will be in my life forever. But I simply needed more nature in my life—green trees, bodies of water everywhere. I was tired of feeling artistically dried up in a place where everything in the environment felt arid and stagnant. It’s daunting to leave a place after being there for so long—but for years I’ve been saying, I’m far from home, born to roam. I knew moving to the Pacific Northwest was just another stop along the path; and the work I’ve created over the last ten months I’ve been in the PNW feels so deeply connected to my natural surroundings and the magic all around, and more like myself than ever. I often think about my inner child, what she would’ve imagined her future self to be like, where she envisioned herself being, and I think we’ve linked up, and I know I’m doing her proud by being delulu enough to chase the art dream.
What inspired you to focus on mixed media and intuitive art, particularly with watercolors?
My use of mixed media all comes down to the fact that it’s really exciting and challenging to work with different traditional mediums! I feel like my bond with art grows stronger when I have a better understanding of how different each medium is. I also have a really rich history of being creative—my mom was a concert pianist, my dad also played music and dabbled in oil painting and glass art, my brother and sister both musicians, and I was winning watercolor competitions by the time I was 7 years old—perhaps this was our only way of truly having anything in common with each other as a family.
I remember taking art classes my first year of college and I had a really great professor. She had a different lesson plan each class and we never focused on one particular medium for longer than 2 or 3 days. This was where I discovered a love for perspective drawing, charcoal and pastels, and figure illustration. Up until then, I had been raised to think I needed to focus on one particular medium and do everything to excel at that medium; needless to say, I have always been rebellious and felt deep down in my soul that it was more important for me to experiment and push the envelope within my own personal art practice.
Intuitive art is such a different way to go about things. For several years when I first started showing my art publicly, I thought about it too much. I simply spent too much time thinking about what I wanted to paint or illustrate, which often led me to major artist block. I was trying too hard to control my process! These days, my intuitive art practice always starts like this: I have a blank canvas, I get it completely saturated with water, and then I start to drop in liquid watercolor with absolutely no vision in mind. I let the paint and water interact with each other—and I let it dry naturally. From there, I start to notice little blips of “what could be” within the canvas or paper. It’s my way of honoring the elements and alchemy. I think there can be a misconception about intuitive art—a lot of people tend to think it means the art is abstract. My paintings begin as abstract I suppose, but I let the imagery speak to me; certain characters (whether they are human or animal) eventually become very realist by the time the painting is finished. The most important part of the intuitive process for me is allowing myself to be open to “mistakes” and then realizing that Bob Ross was right all along when he kept telling us, “There are no mistakes, just happy accidents.”
Can you share how your art helps you process emotions and connect with others?
Making art keeps me in the present. It’s similar to how certain people feel when getting tattooed—all you can do is be in that moment! In my past, I have suffered tremendously from depression and anxiety. Sometimes to the point where it felt like if I got out of bed, I would just melt into the floor. I had lost my dad to cancer, was in and out of therapy, and on and off antidepressants. Most importantly, I wasn’t making much art at all during that time. At some point, something finally shifted in my brain—I could use art as my own version of therapy to work through emotions in a healthier way. Sometimes I cry when I’m painting—but I never see that as a weakness or bad thing. Sometimes I dance and sing at the top of my lungs! I know that something I’m doing is triggering an emotion; and instead of fighting it, I just let it flow, and allow space.
I think vulnerability plays a huge role when it comes to connecting with others. Over the years, I have received several messages and/or comments on social media posts from complete strangers—some of them on the other side of the world. They have reached out in full transparent vulnerability just to tell me how one of my paintings has affected them, or made them feel something magical. And if I had not been vulnerable and took a chance at showing the world my art, these connections would’ve never been made. I just recently installed my first solo exhibit in Seattle and the day of installation a small handful of random people popped in out of curiosity. Every single one of them told me in their own words that they really felt the magic in the room. I wanted to say “looks like my work here is done” followed by a mic drop (lol) because that is always my ultimate goal with showing my art—I want people to feel the magic we all deserve to feel.
What themes do you explore in your dreamscapes, and what do you hope viewers take away from them?
Speaking of magic! As I mentioned before, inner child work is so important with my artwork. I ultimately want to honor my inner child—and she was a firm believer in magic. Magic can be anywhere you look—in the trees, a flower, a spider’s web. We just need to be open to it and allow ourselves the grace of viewing something the way our former child selves once did. To remember the awe of nature. I like to play with folklore imagery and myth because no matter how diverse we are as a species, we all came from a place once where lore and myth were our only sources of storytelling and imagination. And nature was an ever-present entity that we worked with closely (and not against). I think that’s a really beautiful part of our collective pasts.
How did illustrating your first complete tarot deck impact your creative process and artistic journey?
Following through with the tarot deck was my biggest accomplishment as an artist because I actually finished it! I cannot even explain how many ideas or projects I’ve started only for them to be lost in time. Illustrating Tarot of Her also meant it was a partnership between myself and the deck co-creator/writer, my dear friend Melissa LaFara. Working so closely with someone else held me accountable for the work that had to get done. By honoring our project and remaining dedicated, it really kept me present and devoted during each illustration; and in turn, proving to myself I was capable of creating a tangible artistic product from start to finish.
What role does nature play in your work, and how do you incorporate it into your art?
I’m a really lucky lady because I am surrounded by nature where I live. I have a chipmunk friend who regularly visits, a tree frog who lives in the hanging strawberry basket outside, and a bird sanctuary in the backyard. Sometimes down at the dock, swallows fly so close to my head it makes me feel like I’m a Disney princess. I swear. When I think back to other places I’ve lived, it was so apparent in my artwork how the environment was making me feel! The last place I lived in Southern California was heavily polluted and suffering a total ecological disaster. So much art I made during that time reflected that vibe. The one painting that sticks out in my mind is titled “Mr. Dolphin Died That Day”—one of the saddest pieces of art I’ve ever made! I lived in this smaller beach community that borders Tijuana—where there is a decades-long massive sewage spill disaster occurring. We’re talking hundreds of millions of gallons of untreated raw sewage spilling into our beloved Pacific Ocean a lot of the time, for decades. It was a strange juxtaposition; living so close to the ocean, which is a privilege in anyone’s mind of course—but being so deeply sad all at the same time because this paradise has been ruined by greed, in turn, becoming hazardous and fatal to the animals in the ecosystem (and making humans sick). While everyone was worried about their businesses that were affected by beach closures (an honest and legitimate worry), I rarely heard people talking about the effects on the marine life and seabirds. So this painting was a tribute to the unseen, which is usually a big theme that is also woven into my work.
I’m big on visualization and mindfulness and think of the paper I’m painting on and remember it was once a tree or came from a plant. The same goes if I’m working on canvas—I think of the plant fibers that were grown and then spun into fabric to make this canvas. And the pigments in my paints came from the earth! It feels very full circle to me—some kind of sacred connection that I need to honor.
How do you balance your multidisciplinary approach with your love for watercolor painting?
For me, it’s all about finding the balance within the layers of using different mediums. The watercolor layer is always the first thing I put down on the paper or canvas, and it’s usually the last layer. I like to slowly build a relationship with my blank or rough canvas because I feel it deserves that. “Playing” plays a vital role here. And again it circles back to honoring that inner child gently reminding me, “there are no rules here.”
