Portrait of an Artist – Sandra Charlebois: Bear with her, please

With the artistic process, it’s always a challenge to see what’s going to happen. I can never say, ‘I’m going to paint exactly this or that.’ It just doesn’t work that way with me. Because it’s part of my heart and soul, spontaneity is an essential element. – Sandra Charlebois

 

By TIM WILCOX
Special to the Alpine Mountaineer

If you’re hiking in the forest and encounter a sign that reads, “Bear Country,” it’s a warning. But if you happen to be visiting a certain home in Lake Arrowhead and see such a sign, it’s a welcome. The residence belongs to David and Sandra Charlebois (Sharlebwah). Sandra is a prominent mountain artist known especially for her oil paintings of bears. Inside, the walls display a number of these winsome portraits, and the ursine welcome is warm – augmented by the enthusiasm of Poppy the mini Labradoodle.

Sandra was born in Los Angeles and grew up in Glendora with a younger brother. Her father was a plant engineer in the manufacturing sector, while her mother was a full-time mom. She traces her interest in art to early-childhood years. “I always loved drawing and stuff,” she says. “My grandfather was an amazing artist, who did everything except maybe watercolor painting.” And while Sandra was quite young when he passed, the gene pool had a formative effect. “I found a box of his oils and played around with them,” Sandra recalls. “Then, in high school, I was painting clowns and even sold a piece to one of my teachers.”

After graduating from Glendora High, she entered California State University, Los Angeles, where she earned a Bachelor of Arts degree with emphases on illustration and printmaking. Sandra’s aspiration was to become a fashion designer, but there were just no jobs in that field at the time. So she got on board with Head Start and taught young students for about three years.

More than five decades

She’d met David while they were both students at Cal State LA. When he returned from serving in Vietnam, they were married and have remained so for 53 years. Along the way, they had four children: three girls and a boy. Tragically, they lost one of their daughters, Stacey, who was a twin to Heather – something from which a parent never fully recovers. Heather, now 50, lives in Yorba Linda and is an Anaheim Chamber of Commerce event planner. Son Tim, 42, is a Navy captain and F-18 aviator based in Colorado Springs. Daughter Stephanie, 40, who lives in Truckee, is head of strategy and operations for a company serving aspiring authors. Sandra and David have four grandchildren.

As an interesting side note, David is one of California’s preeminent experts in rehabbing historic buildings. It’s something he’s done for more than 60 years and, in fact, continues to do. Prime examples of his work can be found in the L.A. area and San Francisco. He also teaches quarterly master classes at USC. His long-lived company is California Restoration and Waterproofing.

Yorba Linda was the couple’s home for 25 years. (They also lived for 10 years in Cypress, making it 35 years in Orange County.) While primarily a mom to her children, Sandra served as an elementary-school substitute teacher in Yorba Linda, Placentia and Orange. She’d earned her teaching credential from Chapman University in Orange.

“When I was actually offered a contract to teach full time, my kids started crying,” she shares. “They wanted me to stay at home. So did David, who said, ‘If you decide not to take that offer, I’ll buy you a new car.’” Then, with an especially hearty laugh, Sandra adds, “He did, and so I continued just substituting.”

The couple bought their place in Lake Arrowhead in 1995. For 15 years it was a getaway home for them and family members. Then, in 2010, they settled in permanently.

Some years before, Sandra had felt inspired to revive her love of oil painting. “I hadn’t done it for a long time,” she says, candidly sharing that “because of the death of our daughter, it was all gone.” Through Yorba Linda’s parks and recreation department, Sandra connected with Beverly Bruntz, who’s now a well-known artist living in Kentucky. “She clicked with me and got me into plein air painting, something I hadn’t known about before,” Sandra says. “And it all started coming back.” Enter the enduring influence of French and American impressionists.

Subsequently, she studied with Terry Chacon and a group of plein air painters based in Redlands. “I just really loved the way Terry painted, using a palette knife with the oils,” Sandra says. Studies with Susan Sarback in Fair Oaks (near Sacramento) followed. Sarback is a “colorist” – an artist who uses color in especially skillful and evocative ways. Sandra was inspired to emulate her. Plein air workshops with Sarback in Napa confirmed that aspiration.

Following the permanent move to Lake Arrowhead, Sandra took classes with Helga Batman-Koplin, a revered member of the Mountain Arts Network (MAN). A while later Sandra joined MAN and juried into the group’s gallery in Lake Arrowhead Village.

Mostly at home

Although she still enjoys an occasional plein air outing, Sandra does most of her painting now in her kitchen-based studio, which offers marvelous views of The Pinnacles and high-desert communities. It’s an oh-so-colorful setting where bears, rabbits, ducks, dogs, people and more come to life on her canvases. (Oils continue to be her favorite medium, but during the past two years Sandra has been experimenting with fluid acrylics.) Bears are the undisputed stars.

How did they claim that artful standing? Sandra recalls that some years ago she discovered “a mama bear and two cubs on my back porch. I didn’t give them any food, of course,” she says, “but they came almost every night, and the cubs were just so, so cute!”

Sandra remembers that “one of our neighbors had a pond and all these fruit trees, so the bears would visit them, too.” The bears would play in the water and eat all of the apples, some of which had fermented. Laughing again, Sandra continues: “They’d eat so many apples that eventually they got a little drunk and started acting really goofy. And I just cracked up!” 

The next year, she believes that the same cubs – much larger, of course – came back “and did it all over again. That’s how it all started.”

Some of her portraits are from photographs, while others are the product of her fertile imagination. She points to one hanging on a nearby wall and says, “That was my first bear painting, and it’s become my trademark.” The portrait, painted during Christmas 2012, is aptly titled Holiday Wonder. Another piece, rendered from a photograph, depicts a mother grizzly in the Alaskan wilderness teaching her cub how to find clams. “Of course, my bears are never vicious,” insists Sandra. “They’re all friendly personality bears.”

Whatever she creates, Sandra notes that “with the artistic process, it’s always a challenge to see what’s going to happen. I can never say, ‘I’m going to paint exactly this or that.’ It just doesn’t work that way with me. Because it’s part of my heart and soul, spontaneity is an essential element.”

The artist’s paintings are on display and for sale at Mountain Arts Gallery in Lake Arrowhead Village. Her email address is Sandra.Charlebois@gmail.com.