our art: SARAH FINO
peace in the paint
A local artist finds ease at the easel
BY MEL W RHODES
S
arah Fino is affable and easy to talk
to, though from time to time a hint of
shyness flutters across her features.
She likes to talk about colors — she loves
colors.
“I’ve always been a ‘craftsy’ person,”
she said when asked about her painting. She told how she’d come to “fine”
art through beadwork, sewing and other
craftwork.
“You know, of course, as a kid you like
to draw,” she said. “I think the first art
class I took, probably, was in junior high,
and I really enjoyed that.”
JULY 2015
PA R K E R C O U N T Y T O D AY
The Alamogordo, New Mexico native
took no art classes in high school, but a
little later in life she decided to enroll in a
college drawing class at the New Mexico
State University campus in Alamogordo.
She “really, really liked it,” so much so
that in her 40s she earned a Bachelor’s
in Fine Arts with an emphasis on painting from the NMSU Las Cruces campus.
Now, with 20-plus years experience in
her paint box, Sarah, who describes her
style as realism, finds peace in painting.
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“It helps me to feel calm and peaceful.
I enjoy it. It helps with stress…” she said
in a serene tone, as if she’d just set her
brush and acrylics aside. “It’s almost like,
when you’re painting, you’re … I tell my
husband, ‘I’m not going to hear you,’ because I’m focused, in the zone, you know
— you can’t hear, and it’s almost like you
can’t talk… .”
Sarah Fino
Queried as to what art might mean to
society, Sarah said she thinks art plays an
important role, and she believes strongly
in art being a part of school curriculum.
The mother of three and grandmother
of six, says art can boost self-esteem
and self-expression, stimulate that “right
brain,” the creative side, which she
believes will help the left side develop
more thoroughly. It often seems that
when school districts cut their budgets
the first victims of the slash are the arts.
Sarah absolutely does not support that
approach to balancing the budget.
“You’re telling the history of the
world,” her husband Anselmo chimed in.
“It’s [art is] telling you the stories.”