Portrait artist presents at Trinity

June 30, 2015 · 0 Comments

Most days you can find Sandy Harron in the paint department of Fines Hardware giving expert advice on colours for your exterior and interior decorating needs. She, herself is a palette of many colours – a creatively cool exterior with a warm, deep interior, always available with a sunny smile, infectious laugh, and kind words of support and encouragement. Sandy Harron is also an extraordinary portrait artist; she will present her work and story “A Spiritual Journey” at Trinity United Church in Shelburne this Sunday, July 5th.
As a student, Sandy attended Sheridan College in Oakville where she studied illustration and advertising. For a time, she worked in pharmaceutical advertising, but found it was not for her. She and her husband Dave moved to Shelburne to raise a family and Sandy opened a public studio, freelanced illustration and ad art and began teaching in schools and giving art classes at her studio. It was a busy life, but Sandy “loved it.”
A few years ago Sandy found herself on a spiritual awakening and began to paint portraits of people she met through biblical readings. Anyone who has been lucky enough to see these portraits will tell you they are not only beautiful, but compelling, moving, even haunting. She has painted real people in large as life portraits creating a sense that they are present with you in the room and she has captured the essence of their stories in their faces, eyes, even the drape of a hand. To see them is to want to know more. “These are the people who taught me the lessons I needed to learn to transform who I was and where I was going,” and although the stories were thousands of years old, Sandy says, “They spoke to me as if they were written yesterday.”
Since that time she has completed approximately 60 portraits in the series and has presented her works and the story of her spiritual journey over 300 times “to people of all walks of life and in every stage of their own discovery processes: church services, confirmation classes, prisons, clergy gatherings, national conferences, national youth gatherings, retreats, schools, theology classes and more – anywhere there are people gathered.” Sandy calls her story “personal yet universal,” and says she has been “very blessed” to have journeyed with it all over Ontario and into Quebec. Images of her portraits were published in Women’s Concerns magazine and Sandy has “received emails from all over Canada and the world,” from as far away as New Zealand, asking for her to bring her presentation to them…“I just need to get there! That is the goal,” she says.
Sandy’s presentation is “a story of spiritual awakening, finding one’s purpose, following one’s true calling and surrendering to a higher power…not always willingly and most of the time filled with humour!” She says, the people she has met through her paintings and on her journey have shaped her and hopes her art and story have touched a few of them. Sandy “would love people to know that spirituality is ever changing – not static. Open oneself to the possibilities of incredible miracles happening in everyday life…challenge yourself to see yourself and your world in a new way. It has truly been a spiritual journey – the name of the art and stories combined. I am looking so forward to returning to Shelburne to continue the journey.”
All congregations and the general public are invited to hear Sandy speak at Trinity United Church, 200 Owen Sound Street in Shelburne on July 5th at the 11 a.m. service. Following the service, several of her works of art will be hung in Trinity’s new Art Gallery for public viewing from July 5 to Aug 5. There is no charge and the church is open Tuesday to Friday in the morning. For more information call 519 925-2233.

By Marni Walsh