As a master of fine arts student at California College of the Arts, Lynn Sondag sometimes lamented the fussiness of her minimalist hybrid paper sculptures.
“I remember thinking, ‘Oh, this work is so involved. Every time I do a show I have to install. I wish I made small pieces that were really portable,’” she says with a laugh.
Then she got an art residency in India, married and lived with her new husband in his native West Bengal for a few years. That’s when her wish actually came true.
“I knew I’d need to adapt to a new way of working, but I think this is good for an artist — to live with limitations and explore new territory,” says Sondag, 48, chair of the art, art history and design department at Dominican University of California in San Rafael.
So she switched to watercolors. Not only were the materials readily available, but watercolors also were portable. While the medium may have differed, one thing was similar — her fascination with capturing light.
“The landscape and the seasons are so different, the monsoon sky is very dramatic. In California, we don’t often see the deep, dark ‘storm is coming’ kind of sky. I was so taken by these colors and this really vivid imagery in the landscape,” says Sondag, who took daily walks around the rural area, a habit she picked up from her childhood in the Midwest, where for many years she had a newspaper route. “I was just really drawn to the color and the shapes of the sky the weather was creating.”
Daily record
She decided to make a daily recording of what she saw.
Years later, and now back in the Bay Area, Sondag is still walking and painting what she sees. Her watercolors are on display in “Summer’s Lease,” an exhibit in the San Marco Gallery at Dominican University through April 9.
While there are no striking monsoon skies here, Sondag, who lives in San Francisco’s Richmond District, has discovered that the Bay Area’s fog is pretty good at creating its own drama. She’s been documenting the coastal landscape of San Francisco for the past 15 years, and partnered with the Presidio Trust for an exhibit last year at the San Francisco Public Library and the Wallace Stegner Center for Environmental Art, “Presidio Trails: Overlapping and Unfolding Narratives.”
The exhibit stemmed from her numerous hours spent walking Presidio trails. Walking, she says, is how she thinks, how she connects to the environment.
“Initially I look at how light is playing off form, or how the weather is showing up on this trail, but I also look at the physical properties of the foliage, the things that are significant about that trail that I learned about as I was learning about the history of the Presidio. For example, the Bay Area Ridge Trail has a cemetery, and how does that fit into the path?” says Sondag, who spent many hours walking with and talking to rangers and other people in the park to learn as much as she could.
“I like getting into the layers of history. I like to think a little bit beyond my own assumptions or beyond what I’ve noticed. It’s like I tell my students; it’s good to know yourself and it’s also good to see that knowledge in relation to other knowledge.”
Familiar places
The exhibit included several community-based art projects which, as a teacher, was the real joy for her. It was clear from participants’ enthusiasm that a lot of people feel as deeply about the Presidio as she does.
“The work definitely speaks to a lot of people who live in San Francisco and are very familiar with these areas. They recognize the light and it’s almost like this is a very intimate connection, it’s not just, ‘Oh, this is water, this is a tree,’” she says. “Those elements do describe this place, but it’s more talking about how the light depicts and reveals these places. That’s my way of how I connect with a place.”
Allison Stone of the Presidio Trust praises Sondag’s artistry, passion and generosity.
“Her art is incredible,” says Stone, director of park programs. “Her artwork shows the promise of the place and is so evocative of the place and what you might experience.”
Relying on memory
Sondag brings her iPhone with her whenever she walks. Because light changes so quickly, she relies on photos to capture it. But then she’ll rush home and start painting.
“Memory is key. I can’t work with a photo unless it’s fresh in my mind,” she says.
But that doesn’t mean she tries to re-create the scene exactly as the camera records it.
“In contemporary practice, artists have this nice negotiation with abstraction and realism and photorealism and part of that is, what’s going to take priority in the painting? For me, it’s memory and how the watercolor records shapes, which takes precedence over, ‘Oh, the photograph says it looks like this,’” she says.
Although she still walks three days a week and swims the remaining days with Tamalpais Aquatic Masters, based at Marin Academy in San Rafael during the school year, her busy schedule at Dominican means most of Sondag’s painting is done during the summer, which is how “Summer’s Lease” came about.
“My husband kept saying, ‘Oh, I really miss your ocean paintings,’ and I thought that sounds really good because I had been painting the trees for a long time,” she says.
“I do get sick of myself pretty quickly, I can tell when I’m painting if it’s something I’ve done too much and know too well. A lot of making art is learning something new or why bother?”