My Favorite Things is an exploration of artistic joy, growth, and the freedom to create without boundaries. After years of producing work for themed juried and invitational exhibitions, Sonja Caywood found herself wanting to return to an earlier way of working: painting the subjects she loves simply for the joy and experience of painting them.
For this exhibition, Caywood revisits favorite subjects from throughout her career, including new interpretations of works she first painted years ago. By returning to familiar imagery with years of additional experience behind her, she considers how her technique, perspective, and relationship with her subjects have changed over time.
Some works offer a particularly direct look at that evolution, including a subject Caywood has painted three times over the course of twelve years—with remarkably different results each time. At its heart, My Favorite Things is both a return and a new beginning: an artist giving herself permission to follow curiosity, revisit old ideas, and paint what she loves.
Sonja Caywood
A juror in Cheyenne, viewing my painting of eggplant-colored cows years
ago, advised: “Don’t be afraid to be a freak.” I should have listened.
Seeing what sorts of paintings were winning prizes and selling out in
western art shows subconsciously influenced me to create “safer” images.
Almost imperceptibly at first, my work went from expressive, daring and
colorful to more contrived and homogenized. As I tried to “blend in,”
focusing on themes or colors people might like, it became less fun to paint.
Looking at my portfolio, I realized I liked my art more when it was an
expression of what God put inside me more than a reflection of what I
see in the art world around me.
For the last couple years, I’ve been seeking the artist I started out as. I
have a bit more skill now, and a few of these pieces are re-dos of smaller
works from long ago. It’s a lot of fun to compare similar pieces over a
decade apart. Obviously, I didn’t plan a cohesive theme for this show,
except to paint what I love to paint, to find that joy and freedom I used to
have. I love color and brushstrokes. I love subjects with a story or history.
I love animals. If these paintings hang at all well together, it’s purely Jill
Benson’s talent in hanging them, as there’s little rhyme, reason or relation
to these pieces.
I’m not all the way back to who I was as a painter, but I think I’ve found the
path; my goals now are not to be famous or rich but to learn to lay down
paint in an honest way that says more with fewer strokes. Art is no longer
“job” and is becoming my joy and calling again. I hope these paintings
speak to your heart about what my heart feels for this beautiful place we
live, and my gratitude for gift of getting capture it.