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Page 1 of 2 Sigrid Sandström picks us up on the corner of Bedford and N. 7th in a little number with the springs peaking out of the seat cushions. “It’s perfect for my neighborhood,” she says, and gestures toward the shaded windows and the scratched paint-job. “Fits right in.” Sigrid herself is a little number, in physical stature that is. Nymph-like, she wears a black raincoat and yellow leather boots, her short, brown hair gathering around her ears in wisps that she keeps twirling around her fingers. But like the car that she handles with such gentle admiration, Sigrid is a force to be reckoned with.
 
At 37, Sigrid Sandström is an up-and-coming artist with a very distinct style. Her current exhibit, “Recent Works” at the Edward Thorp Gallery in New York City, offers dramatic winter landscapes, simultaneously representational and abstract. In her paintings, studio space bursts into natural space, with architectural details from floors and ceilings peeking through the mountain ranges. Sigrid’s work is about examining her own creative process, how the world she paints springs from the world in which she paints. When we ask her about the lines that cut across the landscapes, she says quite simply, “That’s tape. I use it to think. And sometimes I fall in love with how it looks, so I paint it in.”
Sigrid was born in 1970 in Sweden, and grew up just outside of Stockholm. Her path to becoming an artist is a long and winding one, including university studies in literature, art history and landscape architecture and an assistantship with a set designer. “Since my mother was an architect and my father was an engineer, I had this feeling that you had to have a profession, something you could label yourself. Then I would be this thing,” she says with a musing smile. 
Sigrid came to the United States to attend Cooper Union in New York, and then Yale University for her Masters studies in Fine Art. She was accepted at Skowhegan, was given a summer fellowship to Greenland and finally a two-year fellowship in Houston, Texas. Sigrid is now in a tenure track position at Bard College. Over the recent years, Sigrid has had countless exhibitions to great acclaim, including the 2006 show “Ginnungagap” at the Frye Art Musem in Seattle, WA. Two of her paintings hang in the permanent collection at the Stockholm Museum of Modern Art, in the company of such contemporary Scandinavian greats as Karin Mamma Andersson and Jockum Nordstrom. And, she was just engaged.
Sigrid giggles when we bring up the simple ring on her finger, “I thought getting engaged was a little ridiculous at my age. It seems like something you do when you’re 19 and then break it off. But I also think it is very beautiful, wanting to believe in something for an extended period of time. And to be, in a different sense, a team.”
Is it common for women in your line of work to marry and have families?
"The female artists that I know don’t have kids. All of my mentors, all my colleagues, no one has children. It’s a really tough business if you’re going to have a family. I was told by a gallerist that, as a long term investment, a female artist is not as valuable as a male artist because she’ll have kids and then she’ll stop making art. It never dawned on me that out of the group that I graduated with, it would be the guys that cashed in the money. Now, more than 50 percent of my students are women, but you can just look at the representation at the galleries- it’s almost all men. It’s a really unequal business."
 Is this the same in the United States and Sweden?
"Coming back to my friends at home in Sweden, what strikes me is the value that is placed on the family. For example, all of my male friends took six months off for paternity leave. When I was growing up, my mother was pretty much responsible for all kinds of care-giving. That was before the time that there was paternity leave in Sweden. Now the paternity leave has made a huge difference. I look at Erik (her fiancé), and he would want as much time off as he could possibly get. There is still inequity, but that sense that you are not a loser, or that you’re not losing out on future possibilities because you’re taking different kind of time for a year, has had an incredible impact. So, it’s much easier to have children in Sweden. Not just due to the money you get through all the societal support, but because of the respect you get as a parent and the relief you have of knowing that you’ll have a job to come back to after your parental leave. Here, in New York, it’s so different. My friend had a baby, and she is an architect. She only got six weeks maternity leave. It just seems cruel to the baby and the mother. I would not have a child in New York."
Do you think it is unfair to be single in Sweden and still have to pay into a system that gives back so much to families with children?
"It’s so imbedded in the culture that it is even hard to imagine questioning it. It’s like asking if you should pay for highways in America even though you don’t have a car. Contributing to society is almost ethical for the Swedish culture. It can’t be questioned. It’s our way, as a rather closed and non-confrontational population, to contribute, to communicate in some way. We don’t speak, but we give money. Let’s all be friends— no talking!"
How do the Swedish and American art worlds compare? "The art world in Sweden is very small because Sweden itself is small. You can count the collectors. It seems to me that people there have buckets of time. Almost too much time. It makes you reflect in a contemplative way, not in an active way because you have to solve an immediate problem. It’s a very different kind of pace where as in the US there are always: deadlines, deadlines!"
Do you think getting married will impact your career? "For the purpose of this interview I wish I could say that I am going to have a great career and a great marriage, but I’m suddenly not as interested in a career. I just don’t feel as though, ultimately, that is going to be what fulfills me. With every kind of achievement I’ve had so far, I’ve felt like: is this it? You get some perspective. I do think it comes with age. I’m turning 38 next month and I don’t have anything to prove anymore. When I was younger I had to prove something all the time. I had to get a profession. I had to be something. Now, I finally realize that I don’t have to be something with a label. I’m just going to live my life. I’m not worried about who I am. The comfort came with having a partner who is a part of the team, but also with age. Now I know that it won’t make me unhappy if I don’t have a ridiculous career. And Erik feels the same. He is not super career driven and doesn’t want a powerful position. He wants more time, that’s all he wants. And that has smitten me. You inspire each other. We’re not interested in getting rich, we want a different kind of quality of life."
"As much as I find the intense NYC lifestyle fascinating, because that kind of engagement with the world is inspiring, it can also be exhausting. It’s like a race, which I think is stimulating intellectually, but there seems to be no time for contemplation. You’re just in this world of stimuli. I am longing for slowness and nothingness. To not be so worried about being at the right place at the right time. For the last twelve years I’ve moved every two years, I hopped around. But suddenly, I got this mid-life idea: I want to have my own home. I want to feel like I’m dwelling. This feeling is very new to me. It’s confusing, but it’s exciting."
Are you planning on having children?
"I never thought of having children until I met Erik. I wouldn’t want to be a stay-at-home mother but he would love to be a stay-at-home dad. I know that I don’t want to be the sole caretaker, so to know that my partner would be more invested than I, initially at least—I don’t know how I would react if I had a child, hopefully I would be good—is super important. Now I have to think about these things because I’m running out of time. Erik is, at least for now, more solid in feeling that we can do this."
 You teach to support your work as an artist. Do you enjoy being a professor?
"Teaching, if you are a dedicated and passionate about your subject, has many advantages. You’re never going to get rich, but you’ll get the time, which is worth so much in this country. I have an enormous amount of time to distribute in any way I want. It is not vacation, because you have to research or produce new work for exhibitions, but it gives you the freedom to actually have paid time to work on your art even if it doesn’t do well commercially."
What advice would you give to a young person who wants to pursue a life in the arts?
"Follow your intuition. Be selfish and do what you want. And prepare yourself for a rocky financial life. You have to have a certain kind of patience. Don’t feel so rushed that it all has to happen before a certain age. It’s a lonely life in the studio, but think of that as a great treasure. You have your own world. Keep your integrity. Deep inside we know what we believe in. Stay true to that rather than trying to follow the current trend or wave, because you’ll always be a wave behind no matter what. All the young artists that get their 15 minutes of fame have a hard time when they’re suddenly dropped, which is often what happens. Get rid of the fame-trap fascination and see it as a treasure that you can work independently and create your own world. If you’re in it for the fame and the money, then you’re not going to be happy." The interview is over, but we continue our conversation over lunch. The scheduled one-hour meeting has turned into a four-hour marathon. Sigrid’s energy is palpable. The new-found calm that she speaks about simultaneously enviable and incomprehensible to us who’re still in such a desperate rush to go, go, go! We stumble over our words, interrupting each other and gesticulating wildly. Sigrid listens and smiles knowingly, reminding us that the kind of inner tranquility she appears to have reached is not ours to possess quite yet. We have another decade of frenzied movement still ahead of us. And as we wave goodbye to Sigrid turning the corner to where the little car with the dark windows waits patiently, we realize that that is just fine. We are twenty-two and in a mad hurry. The race is on. Readers have left 6 comments.  6. "Kreativ kraft från Gevalia's hemstad"Michael W., UnregisteredWonderful work Sigrid does! (And You people at The Lattice Group are bringing forth a needed discussion topic, thumbs up!) Please pass along these comments for Sigrid.. ![[smiley=wink]](http://www.thelatticegroup.org/components/com_jreactions/custom/templates/simple/smileys/smiley_wink.gif) 5. UntitledLizette Hijzelendoorn, Unregistered Hej lilla gumman!
Vi är oerhörd stolt över dig!
Lycka till med kärleken!
kram, lizette 4. UntitledCaroline von Post Carlsson, Unregistered vad roligt att läsa om sigrid! grattis till förlovningen! solen skiner i ett snart vårlikt stockholm...och snödropparna är uppe...
kram 3. Hejsan!Rutger von Post, Unregistered Sigrid - vackra tavlor!! love the one with depth/hallway on this page.
Astri - tuff internet sajt.
ska vi svenskar traffas och "ta en fika" nagon gang? :) 2. UntitledGuest User, Unregistered wonderful portrait of an artist.
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