Sherry Slaymaker talks about her history with art, and growing up in Wichita, Kansas by Amber Fraley

Sherry Slaymaker can't remember when she didn't have a pencil or a crayon in her hand. At age 5 when other kids wanted to be policemen or ballerinas or teachers, Slaymaker knew she wanted to be an artist. Her kindergarten teacher even recognized her talent, keeping most of her first works, which of course, were done in tempera paint.

By the second grade, Slaymaker was making her first art sales, selling woodland scenes to her classmates for two cents apiece. (Two-and-a-half sales meant that the enterprising second grader could buy herself a candy bar!)

"I bought my first real oil paint the summer after my seventh grade year," Slaymaker recalls. "I'd saved up my babysitting money, and one afternoon I took the bus downtown—by myself—to an art supply store. I can still remember the tubes of paint I bought: cobalt blue; a spectrum red; a medium yellow; lamp black; flake white and Van Dyke brown. Of course I picked up some canvas board and brushes, oil paint medium, and Dad always kept some turpentine around the house."

Slaymaker practiced with the oils by doing some artwork for friends and family and her church. By the end of her ninth grade year in school she was chosen to receive a scholarship to attend a summer life drawing class at the Wichita Art Association. It was the only art scholarship her school awarded that year.

By her senior year of high school, Slaymaker was contributing drawings to the school calendar and the cover of the school Christmas program. "My art teacher in high school was Rex Hall, who was later the head of the art department at Emporia State University," says Slaymaker.

She attended Ottawa University, Ottawa, Kan., from 1960 to 1961, majoring in math and oil painting. She transferred to Wichita State University, Wichita, Kan., in 1962, where she earned her bachelor of art education degree, graduating with honors. While at WSU, Slaymaker studied oil painting, sculpture, metalsmithing, printmaking and watercolor.

"I had some interest in watercolors at that point, but I didn’t have too much supervised instruction," says Slaymaker. "I also took a semester of ceramics for which I completed all the undergraduate requirements as well as working on some of the projects that were assigned to the graduate students. I really enjoyed ceramics but I didn’t study it exclusively because I knew I had no intention of following it as a career. But I always worked much harder in my classes than what was required of me."

While studying at WSU, one of Slaymaker’s paintings was chosen for a mixed media show at the Wichita Art Museum. "I actually got a watercolor in that show," recalls Slaymaker, even though at that point, watercolor was not her chosen medium. "That show was judged by Dr. Simoni, an art history teacher and head of the art department at Wichita State at the time. He was well known around Wichita for being a highly respected authority of art objects, restoration work and historical architecture. He was also an art appraiser for many of the insurance companies around town. It was a great honor to have him choose one of my pieces for that show."

In addition, Slaymaker’s work caught the attention of her psychology teacher at WSU. Her psychology teacher, Lou Goldman, and his wife Sandy, owned an art gallery in town at the time. Gallery "G" was the first highly regarded gallery to carry Slaymaker’s work, and marked the introduction of Slaymaker’s paintings into the commercial art market.

After graduating from WSU, Slaymaker taught art classes at Allison Jr. High School in Wichita for three years. Slaymaker, who was by this time married, recalls this period of her career a frustrating time, not only for herself, but her husband as well. "Our careers weren’t going anywhere and our art had stagnated," she says.

Having art connections in Wisconsin, Lou and Sandy Goldman suggested that the couple try moving there. It was at this point that Slaymaker made a decision that changed the direction of her career. Wanting to make the move as easy, and as light as possible, Slaymaker left her bulky oil canvasses and equipment behind. In Wisconsin, she began to work exclusively in watercolor. While in Wisconsin, Slaymaker taught life drawing and sculpture from the live model at Edgewood College of the Sacred Heart, a Catholic college in Madison, Wis. She also began to teach seminars on watercolor.

The couple then moved to Greenville, Tenn., where Slaymaker and her husband, a glassblower, had both been offered teaching positions at Tusculum College. At Tusculum, Slaymaker again taught life drawing and sculpture from the live model. At this point in her career, Slaymaker began working in porcelain and stoneware, as well as watercolor. "We were making a pretty good living from our artwork by that time," she recalls.

The years in Wisconsin, Tennessee and back again in Kansas, were high points in Slaymaker’s career. Her work was the subject of several prestigious shows all over the country, many of them one-man. Her work was also accepted into several exclusive, judged competitions.

"But my work didn’t get to the point that I was really happy with it until we moved to Lawrence, Kansas and I worked with Bob Green at the University of Kansas," says Slaymaker. That’s when I really got my education with watercolor. Bob made me change the kind of paper and brushes I used, and he would take me with him when he went out to paint."

Slaymaker says that Green taught her a new way to look at the world, and got her to take a second look at a subject she had, for the most part, dismissed as being passé—flowers.

"I thought that I was pretty good at seeing things, but Bob taught me how to perceive what I was seeing a whole lot better. When you’re looking at something there’s a superficial thing that you see, but there’s really so much more there. He was able to help me discern the complexity of the information. Bob was very good about allowing someone to pursue their own direction and help them to develop that. Thank God for him. He was my mentor. He taught me about the freshness of the watercolor paper, and getting-in and getting-out so that you didn’t sully the surface of the watercolor paper and get the smudging that you can sometimes get with watercolor. He would show me the strokes that were necessary to get a better result, but never on my paper—that was very different than other art teachers."

After a divorce in 1980, Slaymaker was forced to put her art career on hold as she raised her two children. In 1996, her watercolor painting, Frosted Window, was accepted into the prestigious seven-state exhibition (Kansas, Colorado, Oklahoma, Missouri, Nebraska, New Mexico and Texas) of the Kansas Watercolor Society.

Slaymaker is now meeting the new century with a renewed enthusiasm for her art, and a technique that is previously unmatched in her work. She now resides in Wichita, Kan., where she has founded Whitebird Studio. She is a member of the Kansas Watercolor Society.