Painting Her Own Path: Maine Artist Sam Chappell

Lisa Belisle: Sam, you have an interesting background. Obviously you have a background in art, but art history was your background. You are in the corporate world, you did nonprofit fundraising and you've come full circle it sounds like, to really something that was important to you and that's actually creating art. Talk to me about that.

Sam Chappell: It's funny because I did major in art history in college, and I guess that indicates that I've always been interested in art. But if you look at my focus in that art history, it was the Renaissance and the painters that I looked at. It has nothing to do with how I paint now, but I had graduated. I love the history side of things. So when I studied the Renaissance, I loved how you could look at a painting and you could tell so much about the time period by all of the symbolism that they inserted into it. So I think about that now and I laugh because the way that I paint now is much more contemporary, much more impressionist, and you wouldn't know that based on my interests back in school. But I think that tells you the difference between the feelings of maybe why you're driven to create versus what you choose to study.

But yeah, I graduated from college. I didn't think I could use my art history degree at the time, so I went into hospitality and then fundraising for nonprofits in Boston, and I loved that. I loved that period in my life. I think it changed a lot of my perspectives on what's important to me, and it really instilled in me this drive to have a career that felt like I was doing something important. And eventually I did burn out from fundraising. There's a lot of pressure involved in that. So I took a step back. I took a more work-life balance corporate role, and that's around the time that I discovered painting.

Lisa Belisle: You also, somewhere in there we had COVID and somewhere in there you threw in a baby. So little Luke. And has that impacted your work-life balance and the approach that you've taken to what you want to have your world look like moving forward?

Sam Chappell: Yeah, so I discovered painting during COVID. I was lucky enough to go fully remote with that corporate job at the time. So my world, it was closed but also opened up in that I had so much free time and I didn't know what to do with myself during the pandemic. And I picked up paints just as a way to fill the time. And that's when I realized I love this. It feels so meditative, it's such an escape after working all day and with everything going on in the world. And I threw myself into painting and pretty quickly wondered, could I do this for a living? And so I didn't have work-life balance for a while because I worked my day job. And then at night, every night I would paint, on the weekends I would paint, and as it gained momentum, I realized maybe I could make this work.

And I knew we wanted kids down the line. So I told my husband once I was brave enough to say that this was a goal of mine. I want to give myself as many years as it takes before we have kids to see how much I can grow my painting business. And if at that time I'm doing well enough, I would really love to consider leaving my job and taking care of the baby and also doing painting full time. And that's how it worked out. So I worked my butt off leading up to that because I really wanted to leave my job and I really wanted to paint. It was the first time that I felt just so passionate about work that I was doing. And when we moved to Maine in 2023, I found I was pregnant pretty immediately. And that was the moment where I realized, okay, I have nine to 10 months to solidify my plans. And after I gave birth to Luke, I left my job and started a whole new, I mean, work-life balance doesn't really exist, but when I'm taking care of my son, who I love, it's amazing. It's a lot of work, but it's amazing. And then I do my painting when he sleeps and I love it. I crave any moment that I can get to the easel. So I don't know how much balance there is in my life, but I love every piece of it.

Lisa Belisle: I remember talking to one of the art gallery artists, Paula Stern, she's a sculptor, and her children are all older now. In fact, I think they're probably closer to your age, my age. But she talked about that. She talked about doing the work while her children slept and how important that was to her. And it wasn't very balanced. It was absolutely feeling like you're working hard in lots of different ways all the time. But it was really important to her identity as a person, to her evolution of self and also to bringing her best self to her children, I believe. Is that something that you can relate to?

Sam Chappell: Yeah, I think about this all the time. I don't know that I was destined to be a stay at home mom. I've always needed projects and I've always needed goals. And the fact that I have this outlet that's just for myself, and it existed before I had my son, so it was really important to who I was before I became a mom. And when you become a mom, you become this totally different version of yourself that you don't know. You can't know what to expect until it happens and it's beautiful. But it's so nice to have the reminder of who I was before and something totally outside of Luke. And so I think I'm a better painter because I have him. I appreciate every second I have to work, but I'm also a better mom because I have this area of my life that I'm so fulfilled in outside of him that not all of my expectations and hopes rest on him. I think it's important to have both for me.

Lisa Belisle: You've identified it really correctly. Everybody's so different in what they want out of their lives. And so for you to be able to say, yeah, this is what I want and I also want this, and these things can simultaneously exist and maybe they're not in balance, but at least they both represent important things to me and I can move forward with that idea. So why landscape? What was it about landscape and the more impressionistic approach that appealed to you?

Sam Chappell: When I was in college my parents moved to South Carolina, and this is not the hardest thing that's ever happened in my life, but at the time it was very hard for me to leave a small town that I lived in Massachusetts. I was in college in Pennsylvania at the time. So when they left for South Carolina, all of a sudden it felt like when I would go home on breaks, I wasn't really home. And I was such a homebody. I loved the town I grew up in. It was in the middle of the woods and I knew every street and I thought I was a diehard New Englander. I was like, why would anyone want to live anywhere else? I was so young and I didn't get it. And after a couple of years of being in South Carolina, I got it. I fell in love with, they're on Hilton Head, so it's an island off the coast and the low country landscape is totally, totally different from New England.

And I fell in love with it. And I think that's when I realized you can love multiple places for entirely different reasons. And around that same time, I started traveling more. I studied abroad in Italy for my art history major. And everywhere I went I realized how different places are, and especially the landscapes always stuck out to me. And that's when I started just devouring the differences. I would get into an Uber from an airport and I would just look out the window the entire time to try and absorb whatever new place I was in. And for a while I didn't have painting at that time. So I was trying to process these places and I started to think this place is beautiful. I could see myself living here. I could see another trajectory in my life, but you can't just keep moving.

So it's funny, I swung the opposite way, but I kept wondering, what if I lived here? And I always had this bittersweet feeling, that appreciation for the moment I am in, but also the sadness that I couldn't live this other life or I can't prolong the moment. And so for a while I tried to take photos while I'd travel or I'd be in these places and they never quite live up to what I was trying to capture. And when I started painting, it was during COVID, right? So I wasn't going anywhere. So I was looking at all these photos I would take and I would start painting them. And it was the first time I realized that was what I needed, to sit with these moments I had tried to capture and really do justice to what I was feeling in those places.

So it helped me feel less bittersweet. When I went back into the world and I started traveling again, I didn't feel so sad that this moment would pass because I knew I would be taking a photo. It didn't have to capture everything, and I would bring it to the easel and that's where I would be sitting with it and really get to make that place my own and add feeling to it. So that's why I don't try and capture a place exactly as it appears in a photo because that's not what struck me in the moment. It's really just the feeling of a place. And that's why my paintings are loose and dramatic and have a lot of, hopefully they feel really alive.

Lisa Belisle: When I think about Renaissance art, it is a lot more structured. There's a lot more symbolism, obviously light is very important and that's an interesting contrast to what you're describing your work to be like. Are you pulling any of your information from your past studies into your current work, even if it's not the work itself, but are you pulling the knowledge? Are you pulling anything else that is showing up in a different way now?

Sam Chappell: I don't think I am. I kind of think of them as totally separate. And I found when I started painting, I'm self taught, so I didn't take any lessons, so through painting every single night, I just tried out a bunch of different things. I saw artists working in different ways with different colors and it allowed me to experiment. But I found over that time that the more I tried to paint like someone else, whether it was a contemporary artist or someone in art history, the less natural it felt and the less I liked it. And the times when I would sit and paint and not think about anything other than the photo in front of me and the movements I was making, that's when it felt the most natural and that's when I was the happiest with the result. So I'm sure on some subconscious level I am influenced by art history.

You can't learn all of that and not be influenced. But it is interesting. I couldn't tell you how I am because of that. And it's really interesting to me. If you had told the student that I was back then, this is how I paint, this is how I feel about it, I would be so surprised. But I've learned so much that it is for me, just a feeling. And it's not the end result. I'm not going into it thinking I want to create a painting that gives you this specific feeling or has this message. For me, I love painting for the process of it and how I feel during it. So I think that it comes down to this more intuitive process than anything else.

Lisa Belisle: In speaking with artists over time, I have heard this word process brought up often and it's really important. It's really important to the artists. I think there's something that I didn't quite understand about it. Like, okay, you have paints, you have a canvas or a panel or whatever it is. You put the paints on the, what's the process, what's the big deal? And I think I have actually come to understand it over time because I relate it more to the process that I engage in when I write, for example, because that's my art form. But I wonder if you could play this out a little bit for people who are listening to or watching Radio Maine, who may not be artists, who don't understand why process is important and why it is important to talk about process.

Sam Chappell: It always starts with a blank canvas, and my canvases usually have a full coat of one color, typically bright red. And so I always start painting the same way. I have that coat and then I have just black paint and I have my photo and I just do this really quick sketch with the black paint. So I outline all of the key things that I know I want in the painting. Maybe it's a dramatic coastline or an angle I really want to make sure I preserve in it because I know once I start painting, it evolves in ways I can't expect. So that underpainting is the loose guide for everything that happens. And for me, I always am listening to music, so I have AirPods in and that's really important to me. I blast music and I think that's part of the feeling. I could be feeling anything when I go to the canvas.

I could be happy, sad, angry, whatever it is. I pick music that amplifies that because I think that painting, feeling is really important, at least to my work. And I just start building up layers from there. For me, I usually start with the darkest components of the painting because I'm mixing paints as I go. I never paint out of the tube, and then I start mixing lighter, and that's my process, and then it kind of goes off the rails from there. Once I get the main layers down, then I just follow whatever I'm interested in. Maybe I'm building up the coastline and I'm mixing, then I can mix light and dark depending on what I decide I want. But I just follow that and let it build. And the best way I've come to describe it is like you're putting together a puzzle, and a lot of times the beginning direction, and then it feels like you're putting pieces in.

I'll paint an element, see how it looks with the rest of the painting, and if it doesn't feel right to my eye, I change it. And it's a series of adjustments until you get to the full picture that feels right to your eye. And a lot of painters refer to the messy middle. It's the middle of the painting where you're not quite sure it's going to work out or that you like the painting, but you just have to push through it and trust in the process that you will get to a point where all the pieces are coming together. And for me, the part of the process that keeps me going is you're right past that messy middle. You get to a point where all the elements are starting to tie together and it's exhilarating. I don't know how else to say it. It's the best feeling in the world to see something come together and the momentum is there. You kind of know what direction you're going in then, and by the end, you have this scene that hopefully you love, sometimes you don't, but the scene that you created out of nothing. And I think it's that creation and the fact that it didn't exist before your hands went to the easel. That is the most beautiful and magical thing to me.

Lisa Belisle: I think you explained that really well. I know you started off by saying, I hope I do this justice for other artists, but whether you do or not for other artists, you explained that in a way that I think it's actually pretty profound, really. And for me it's relatable because I think I've experienced something similar with writing, or writing is, a lot of it is putting puzzle pieces together. And a lot of it is having to sit with, oh, this is not where I want it to be, but I'm really hoping to get it to the place where it all does come together and it is this intuitive sense, okay, now we're through, we've created this cohesive end product and this feels right, but there's nothing about it that I could say. I think specifically I did this and this to come to this place. Is that relatable?

Sam Chappell: Yeah. Sometimes I look at a painting that I love and I'm like, I don't even know how all these angles came together so perfectly to my eye, but I'm so happy with it, and if you ask me to recreate it, I might not be able to, this level of perfection. But it's just something where you do all the steps and you just have faith that it's going to come together and it usually does if you trust.

Lisa Belisle: Why red?

Sam Chappell: That's a good question. And I mentioned before that I tried a bunch of different things when I was learning. So I was looking at different contemporary artists and I noticed a lot of people used underpaintings, and I didn't even know why they did it at the time. I just started testing out different colors. I tried fuchsia and burnt sienna and a brighter orange, and eventually I landed on consistently using either orange or red, which has now bled into just red.

And over time, I have a couple of reasons why I like it. One is, and someone explained this while I don't remember who, whenever you do any type of underpainting, it provides this cohesion to a piece if it shows through at different points in the painting. Whereas if you finish a painting and you see white canvas peeking through, it feels very different. It feels unfinished. So any one color would do that, provide that cohesion. And then if you're looking at the colors you use, I use a lot of blues and greens. Green is complimentary to red, and when you see those peeking through next to each other, it is more dynamic. It allows the colors to pop.

And I think those are why I've just stuck with it. I love it. I play with it. Some paintings I allow the red to peek through more than others. Some paintings I really thin down the paint, so it's a little more watery, and that allows the color of the paint I'm putting on to interact with the red more. So I had a few paintings recently that I leaned into purples, which I don't typically do, but I leaned into the purples because when I was washing really thin layers of blue paint, it created this beautiful light purple effect that I didn't expect when I started painting. So a lot of it is just exploring as I go and realizing all the different ways that the red helps my paintings. And I don't think I'll be stopping anytime soon.

Lisa Belisle: When my husband and I were at the National Gallery a few weeks ago for his birthday, we were fortunate enough as part of his birthday present to have a tour, and she brought us down to some Renaissance paintings. And that was fantastic because I've never looked at those particular paintings that way before. But she also was talking about the history of color, and I started reading about the history of color. And red is one of the earliest colors. You probably know this from your background in art history, and yet it's still somewhat of a mystery. We still don't exactly understand all of the reasons why red was brought forward earlier than other colors, except I guess because some of the substances that make red were more readily available. But the fact that you've just intuitively said, this is the one that I would like to use, I find that really interesting.

Sam Chappell: That is so interesting. I do feel like there's something just riveting about red too. It captures your attention in the way that other colors don't. And I had never even thought too much about the fact that I use a red underpainting until when I joined Portland Art Gallery, I've had the opportunity to talk to a lot of collectors and they almost always bring up the red. So it's been more obvious to me too that that is something that is catching people's eyes that I wasn't aware of before.

Lisa Belisle: I love symbolism. I practice Chinese medicine. There's a lot of symbolism that goes along with acupuncture, Chinese medicine, and red is the color of the heart. And you brought in earlier, you said, I finally had the courage to say, this is what I want to do. And courage, that's heart. So what you needed to do to really dig into your own self is to say, I'm going to embrace this redness. I'm going to embrace this courage. I'm going to have the courage to say, this is the life that I want to live. And not everybody does that because it does take a lot to say, this is my self, this is my truth, and this is who I want to be. So talk to me about how you got yourself to that place and through that.

Sam Chappell: Yeah, that's very perceptive. I remember I started an Instagram for my artwork at the very beginning, and I thought it would encourage me to be consistent and keep painting, but I was embarrassed to share that I was painting. So I named it what it's still called actually, East North Studio. And that was because I lived on East North Street at the time. I don't anymore. And I didn't want to tell my friends about the account just until I got more comfortable. There's something very vulnerable about creating and putting something out into the world and having people react, especially art, because art is so subjective. Everyone has different tastes. So even if someone is professional and has beautiful paintings, there's always going to be someone who says, ugh, not for me. So when you're teaching yourself to paint and you're really early on, it's so vulnerable. And there's something about strangers seeing your work, once you get positive feedback on that, that is, sorry to friends and family, but it's more meaningful because it's someone with no stake to you who chooses to say they like your work and they're not trying to make you feel better.

And that Instagram account, I did eventually have friends and family follow me, and they were lovely and supportive, but it was those initial people that built relationships with me that didn't know me, that just found my art and liked it, that were so encouraging to me. It's a process. I think all artists talk about imposter syndrome and it never leaves you. And I think I still very much have it, but every step of the way, as I started putting more artwork out there and I started being brave enough to apply for a mixed show when I lived in South Carolina and then I applied to have my art in a restaurant and ended up putting 20 pieces there, these baby steps of getting my art out in the world and being able to actually see people's reactions to it. I think art is such a solo thing.

You're creating it alone in your house and you don't really know how people are going to feel about it until you put it out in the world. And finding out what people think about my work and why it struck them is as rewarding as the process of creation. I don't always know how they're going to react to it, and I don't always know why they're going to be drawn to it, but it's so special to hear what I painted might remind someone of a landscape in a totally different part of the world that means something to them because they grew up going there in Germany or wherever it might be. And hearing these stories is so rewarding and it just provides this connection to others that's been really special to me. I may have totally gone off on your question, but hopefully I somewhat answered it.

Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I think that your description of vulnerability as an artist, it is something that having now worked with artists for a very long time, it's a recurring theme, and you're putting something out there that's so deeply personal to yourself. It's almost like putting Luke out there on a sidewalk and being like, okay, please treat him nicely. And of course, who would ever want to do that? And yet, that's as much of the process of being an artist as actually creating the work, is the ability to have that vulnerability to show up in the world, to have that courage, to put yourself out there. And it's a continual courage that you need to have because you might be successful today, but that doesn't mean that that's going to continue forever. So does it help to be a member of the Portland Art Gallery community or a gallery in general? Does having that artist community, is that worthwhile for you?

Sam Chappell: Oh yeah, a hundred percent. I think that it is such a solo experience that being able to talk to other artists who are in the same situation as me, it's like I finally have coworkers, and we might all paint in different paint or do other mediums and different styles, but we're all experiencing navigating this art career together. And I found it so helpful. I meet up with some of the artists outside of openings now, and we'll workshop together and I'll bounce ideas off, whether it's the size I'm painting and the challenges I'm having logistically, or just talking about our process with someone who understands. I can talk about my painting all I want to my husband and he likes to listen to it, but at the end of the day, he's not an artist and he doesn't understand things in the same way.

So I've really appreciated that. And I think Portland Art Gallery, I was just so surprised by, I'm still meeting, there's so many artists, but every time I meet an artist, everyone is so supportive. And you don't always find that. I think it's easy to feel competitive sometimes in the art world. I've kind of felt like a rising tide lifts all ships, but it can be a competitive place. And I think it's really special when you find a group of artists that don't feel that way and that are really interested in lifting up your work. And that's what I feel at Portland Art Gallery.

Lisa Belisle: Yeah, I think that's absolutely right. That's really important. And I feel the way that you do about this, that if people come to the Portland Art Gallery and maybe they're drawn to your piece, maybe they're drawn to a Rodney Dennis piece. It's a very personal thing. It's a very emotional thing, but no matter what art you're drawn to, you're still drawn to something that you buy to support an artist, that you bring home to your house and put on the wall. So you're still supporting the importance of beauty in the world, the importance of emotion in the world, which I think ultimately is the goal really. As someone who has pretty early on, but still through some process, come to a place where you thought you were going to start your working career one way and then you took a little bit of a left turn, if there are others who are paying attention to the conversation today, what advice would you give them about their own perhaps courageous decisions that they're on the verge of making?

Sam Chappell: Yeah, I felt stuck for a while in my career, and I thought I've made the series of choices through picking my major and then the steps I chose. I was in fundraising and just enough years passed where I thought, I'm approaching my thirties, I'm now almost 35, but I was approaching my thirties and I just felt a little stuck. I didn't know what. I would go back to school. My husband always said, well, you could do something else. You could go back to school. But I didn't know what for at the time, and it just felt overwhelming to think about starting over again. And so I had settled into this, this is kind of my life. I'll probably be working for the weekends. And I feel like a lot of people feel this way. And when I discovered painting, it was like a whole separate door opened that I didn't know existed.

And suddenly I saw that alternative future that I didn't think I would have. And I wanted it so badly that I worked hard for it, and it really propelled me. What helped is I knew it wouldn't happen right away, and I knew I would give myself three to five years to even get it off the ground, to give it a shot. And I think it's important to give yourself time for whatever that interest is to build before you give up, because I do think it is really intimidating to think of doing a total 180 on whatever direction you've made, but I am so grateful that I did it. I still can't believe that I've made such a radical change in my life, and I've never been happier. I work a lot. I don't know that I have balance, but I finally understand what people said before when they say it's impossible to have work-life balance maybe.

But maybe that's a good thing sometimes because the type of work-life balance I do or do not have is exactly what I want. I don't dread working anymore. I look forward to those moments where I get to work and I feel passionate about even the admin things that support my business because it's something that I believe in so fully. So I think my message would just be that find what you want and come up with a realistic timeline for giving yourself a shot to make it happen. And it doesn't matter what age you are. I've talked to people who've started art when they were 60 and they developed a beautiful practice and sometimes a beautiful career. And I think it just has taught me to never think that you're truly stuck where you are.

Lisa Belisle: Wise words. Thank you, Sam. I've been speaking with artist Sam Chappell, one of the Portland Art Gallery's most recent artists. And she has beautiful pieces that I think we'll want to see in person. So we'd welcome you to the Old Port, to the Portland Art Gallery in Portland, Maine. But also if unable to make it there in person, you certainly can go to our website and that's the portlandartgallery.com. And I've seen you many times at the gallery openings. I'm hoping that that's going to be a regular thing. So if individuals who are watching or listening to our conversation would like to meet you, I suspect they could come to the first Thursday art openings as well.

Sam Chappell: Yes. Thank you so much for having me, and I do try to attend each one of those openings.

Lisa Belisle: Well, we will see you again there. And thank you so much for coming in today.

Sam Chappell: Thank you.