Makers Series — Sarah Simon
A Conversation with The Mint Gardener
Get ready to be inspired! For our newest Makers Series feature, and in honor of World Watercolor Month, we had the pleasure of chatting with Sarah Simon, the artist behind @themintgardener.
Sarah's artistic path is a beautiful reminder that it's never too late to embrace your passions. From a career in economics to becoming a beloved author and teacher, she's cultivated a life rich with color and creativity. Join us as Sarah shares her insights on slowing down, finding joy in the everyday, and the surprising power of simply beginning.
Can you tell us a little about yourself and your journey to becoming the artist you are today?
I have had a few professional careers in my adult life, many of which did not involve art. However, I was always teaching in some way, and finding ways to work creativity into my various career paths of economics, insurance and human resources – oh the wild untamed trails our lives can take when we are seeking our calling!
I always wanted to pursue art in my heart of hearts, but it felt so scary and vulnerable, so I side-stepped every chance I was given to claim it. I was able to ignore the call to create until finally, Art caught up with me: I broke my foot and sprained my ankle during a snowy winter in Seattle. With a boot and crutches, I was forced to slow down, sit still, reevaluate…and when I did, I began to draw and paint again. I was reminded WHY I ever wanted to be an artist in the first place: when I’m creating, I feel the most me. Like the famous quote about "muchness" from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter's tells Alice: "You used to be much more...muchier. You've lost your muchness.” My return to art was a rediscovery of my own muchness; a deep-breath homecoming to wonder when I believed in and intrinsically understood the power of creating, and the joy, imagination and vibrancy of colors, textures and the way paint moves and shines on a crisp white page. It's also just the best way to slow down and savor the beauty in the everyday moments.
After a few years sharing my drawings and paintings on Instagram, I was invited to begin publishing books, which led to teaching workshops to fabulous groups of creatives who were seeking the same freedom and joy that art so generously brings to anyone willing to sit down and play. Teaching others how accessible art can be, sharing my path and how wonderful it is, growing together and expressing ourselves through pencils, ink and paint...it's like teaching my friends how to fly!
Is there a particular quote, piece of work, or even a specific sound/smell that ignites your creative process?
My painting process is deeply intertwined with my love of flowers and botanical form. The garden inspires my work, and my work helps me fall in love with the shape, form, tone, and color of the garden. I adore an English-style country garden, where the zinnias and coneflowers spill over one another, the garden beds full of bright splashes of color, with late summer lilies and cupcake cosmos bobbing in the breeze in the golden hour. Observing flowers in all stages of bloom; some spent, and others lifting their petals to the sunshine, unruly yet beautiful in their bloom. All is light, pleasant, serene, and other-worldly. A picture you’d like to step into and just breathe and be. Drawing flowers, immortalizing their fleeting dance, feels like the best way to share this peace and beauty that they bring me every spring and summer. I enjoy painting outside in my garden on the lovely warm days, but working from inspired photographs year-round is a joy as well!
When we have eyes for the beauty surrounding us, we add something of value to our lives that tends to break the spiral of fear, frustration, and resistance. Gardening, drawing, and painting help me to find joy in my everyday life and to begin a cycle that inspires and beckons me to create—to express and share the beauty that I am seeing and feeling, and to pass it on.
“Quality of life is in proportion,
always,
to the capacity for delight.
The capacity for delight
is the gift
of paying attention.”
- Julia Cameron
These moments when I create space for beauty, when I slow down to pay attention to gardening, drawing, painting; these are what make my days feel full and good, calming, reflective. It is always worth it to make that time, even if it’s just carving ten minutes out of the day for myself to pay attention to how a petal curls and translating that onto my paper with a pencil.
On January 1, 2024, I started a Daily Drawing practice of sketching every day. I thought I would do it as a 100 day project, but I have learned that that creative time is too important to skip, so I just kept on going! Now I have a whole community on Instagram that draws together, every day and for those who started with me, we are coming up on 565 days of daily drawing…! Anyone can join anytime – all are welcome and I could fill pages and pages of words with the stories I get to hear daily of how this practice has shaped so many people’s art and dreams. So, I give myself permission to step over piles of laundry and ignore dirty dishes in the sink, and I’m a better person for my family when I make the time to take a deep breath and create. Not only have my skills grown with this easy, free daily practice, but I have learned the value of waking up to wonder and choosing it as a daily practice.
Tell us about your favorite project to date. What made it so special?
Picking a favorite project feels a bit like picking a favorite flower – impossible. But I will say my daily drawing practice, in its unassuming simplicity, has made a huge impression on me.
Besides the obvious honing of my skills and hand-eye coordination that this daily art practice has taught me, there have been so many surprising benefits of jumping in without being too attached to the outcome of a simple drawing every day:
- Much in life depends on how we see ordinary, everyday moments. Slowing down to draw the ‘ordinary’ bits suddenly reveals a lot of the beauty we move past too quickly, and allows us to savor it.
- Things get messy before they get good. Stick with it.
- Showing up to create every day takes MORE courage, than confidence.
- It makes me so happy looking back to see the progress I’ve made, and to stand in awe of the collection of notebooks that I’ve now filled with all of my of my drawings.
- Still, with all of that knowing, every day, when it is time to draw, there is such a large part of me that resists it. Every morning is a bit of a wobble and flounder, reminding myself to sit down, and that I REALLY DO LOVE IT. Showing up feels like more than half the battle.
- Drawing different subjects every day is hard. Some are HARD and the inner critic can be brutal. Others, I find myself surprised at the growth that this art practice has given me. It always starts a little coarse. But as I lie to remind myself, what’s a little mud on my ego? Resistance looms large every new day, but I am getting braver.
How did you discover Blackwing pencils?
One of the most beautiful parts of the art retreats I lead is the creative souls I meet, and their enthusiastic sharing of their favorite art supplies. We gather together, immersed in beauty and creative process for days, and always bring one or two FAVORITE things that we cannot imagine leaving out of our traveling art kits. One of my attendees who has now become a dear friend, Shellie, brought along Blackwing pencils. She uses them in her daily practice, and thought I might enjoy them as well. I sharpened my first Blackwing Pearl that Shellie brought me as a gift, and I have never gone back! After the Pearl, I’ve collected the Natural, the 602 and the Matte, enjoying the lead differentiations for my own different pieces I create. I have the Blackwing sharpener as well, and it’s become a staple in my travel art kit!
What other tools are essential to your process?
I love to add watercolor paints, and sometimes waterproof ink, to my drawings.
As Georgia O’Keeffe said:
"I found I could say things with color and shapes that I couldn't say any other way - things I had no words for.”
I use my pencils to lay out the outline, or contour, of the subject, slowing circling the art, refining the perspective as I add details. I don’t like to erase my pencil lines often, as their presence tells the story of each pieces’ process. I like to think of my pencil lines as the bones to my art. The paints can follow in all of their translucent, wild beauty, because the form has been established first. The paint adds contrast and whimsy, drawing the viewers eye into the details beyond the colors. I feel like the combination of strong formed lines with the added beauty of light and dark colors makes a symphony for the eyes.
In a world that often celebrates speed, what does "slowing down" mean to you?
The practice of slowing down means everything to me. Mainly because the practice is so hard won, and each day the tyranny of the urgent demands to drag us in so many directions. Our days can feel like a rip tide that just won’t stop in its worries, fears and anxieties. Our hours fly by so quickly, we are left channel surfing and doom scrolling at 10pm (yes of course both at the same time!), wondering where the day went. But when I practice slowing down, paying attention, and breathing deeply (all things an art practice brings along ) those savored moments feel extremely satisfying. Knowing that I brought at least one small thing into the world that wouldn’t be here if I weren’t, marks that day with the quiet work of play, and that found connection makes that day special. Unique, beautiful, calm, triumphant even, despite the quality of art you created. You know you showed up for yourself and bit by bit, each time you do, you’re getting stronger and better.
“I am not naive in thinking that the tiny,
particular acts of love
and joy are going to swing the balance.
These acts are spontaneous, unselfconscious.
They may be as quiet as pulling a blanket up over the sleeping baby, or as noisy as the night of trumpets and stars.”
- Madeliene l’Engle from “A Circle of Quiet”
What message or piece of advice would you offer to fellow creators who are just starting their journeys?
“The passage into mystery always refreshes.
If, when we work,
we can look once a day upon the face of mystery,
then our labor satisfies.
We are lightened
when our gifts rise from pools
we cannot fathom.
Then we know they are inexhaustible.”
- Lewis Hyde from “The Gift: Creativity and the Artist in the Modern World”
We know to be our best selves we should eat well, exercise, get enough rest and sleep; we know all those things are good. I think a big part of overall wellbeing is also pursuing your creativity. If you feel that desire to create, then you need to sit down and create. Just do it. Look upon the face of mystery! Even if you try, and it’s absolute crap – you showed up! That’s the win to celebrate!
At the top of my ‘To-Do’ list in my Notes that I look at every morning, I have a few quotes and reminders that inspire me:
- Don't let fear stop you from doing what you love!
- “So we shall let the reader answer this question for themselves: who is the happier person, she who has braved the storm of life and lived or she who has stayed securely on shore and merely existed?
- Hunter S. Thompson - Expression over perfection
Playing over Performing
The growth is in the doing - not the perfection
It’s challenging and awkward to begin, but take courage and know you’re not alone – everyone is a beginner at some point! Know that the more you do it, the more your style will emerge, and the more comfortable your body will feel doing it.
I think it’s just like anything good for us. We fight it at first, and there’s that piece of resistance that always tries to stop us from reaching for our potential. Steven Pressfield’s book, The War of Art, has become a bit of a manual for me. It’s my favorite book to recommend to people who feel challenged and are experiencing creative roadblocks, or just need that little boost to BEGIN!
So my advice is to BEGIN:
- Gather your favorite tools to create,
- Read some inspiring quotes (maybe this article helped give you the final permission you needed!)
- Start simple and small. Feel free to join my Daily Drawing so you don’t have to come up with your own prompts.
And, as James Clear says:
"Focus on the seeds, not the trees.
What seeds are you planting today?"
Where can the Blackwing community follow and support you?
https://www.themintgardener.com/links
https://www.instagram.com/themintgardener
https://www.facebook.com/themintgardener
https://www.tiktok.com/@themintgardener