Today, we are very lucky to be interviewing Victoria Sonstegard, a graduate from our Ph.D. programme in Cultural Art History.
Hi Victoria, thank you for agreeing to this interview. We would like to learn a little more about you.
Where do you live now and what are you up to?
I live in Thousand Oaks, California, and teach Advanced Placement Art History and Art Portfolio, Life Drawing, and Art Media at a high school there. I also teach Adult Education Art Appreciation classes and art classes at the community college level.
What is your fondest memory about the time you were a student at Warnborough?
The process of the program. I loved the research and the writing of my thesis. I also learned how to become proficient in academic writing and my writing skills improved exponentially. Dr. Jill Kiefer, my mentor and guide, was invaluable in terms of her sage advice and discussion during our meetings.
What were you like at school when you were a kid?
I loved school, was full of enthusiasm, and was the female class clown. My early years were spent in an older Catholic school and I was always in trouble with the nuns – I spent quite a bit of time sitting in the principal’s office! Later, I discovered theatre and found an outlet for my boundless energy and performed in plays and musicals throughout high school and beyond.
What is the biggest difference between what you were researching while you were in the programme at Warnborough and what you are doing now?
Before my programme, I was teaching and doing a bit of artwork. After I completed the programme, I was looking for something to do to build on what I had spent so much time learning. Inspired by my thesis, I created a blog that explores female artists working in the American west. It’s somewhat chronological, beginning with the earliest names I can locate with enough information to share, and I choose from a cache of sculptors, painters, and photographers from all ethnicities. I’m intrigued by and considering research into the many women who were involved in the art of the church throughout history-another blog perhaps.
Why did you choose this career?
I love art and always found myself drawing. It seemed as if whenever I was between jobs working at what I thought I was “supposed” to be doing, I ended up in an art-related situation. After returning to school to finish my undergraduate degree in art, I decided to pursue an art career full-time, first, as an intern at Nickelodeon doing storyboard clean-up, then working as a graphic artist and illustrator.
I was an Art Director for an advertising agency in Los Angeles and, when the commute became untenable, I moved into education and have been working as an art educator for about 15 years.
What are your career ambitions now?
I plan to keep adding to my blog-there are so many female artists yet to discover. I am also working towards teaching Art History at the university level, especially to graduate students. I want to improve my painting skills as well. I have so many ideas that I’d like to pursue, but don’t feel as if my technique will provide the outcome to which I am working.
Who or what inspires you in this career?
My mother is my greatest inspiration. She was courageous, smart, and independent. She was also capable and strong at a time when women were not expected to be and showed me that women could become or do anything they committed to do as long as they were not afraid to work hard to achieve their goals. She was also creative and artistic but was never able to explore that aspect of her ability. She encouraged me to do so and I do it in her memory.
What are you working on at the minute?
I add several artists per month to my blog. I am also finishing a ten-piece series of paintings and drawings on women smoking cigarettes. It’s an examination from a cultural standpoint and what it means to be a woman who chooses to smoke at this point in history.
I’m in the process of publishing my thesis as a book and working with Outskirts Press in the very early stages of this journey.
What is your favourite quote?
“There is good art and bad art, but there is no ‘wrong’ in art.” It’s my favourite quote because I made it up!
What is your favourite film and why?
Don’t have a particular favourite film, but I just saw “The Monuments Men” and it simply resonated with me-a lovely, character-driven film that explores the importance of saving art as it equates to saving the culture of Western Civilization. I enjoy and show the independent film, “Exit through the Gift Shop” to my students every year because it deals with the local LA art scene and the street artists who work there.
What advice would you give to aspiring students?
Find your muse, whatever it may be, and explore. Be curious and grow every day.
Which famous person, living or dead would you like to meet and why?
One of my thesis artists, Imogen Cunningham. She was a San Francisco-based photographer with an incredible eye-an independent woman who worked up until just a week or so before she died at age ninety-three. Her last book, After Ninety, was published posthumously as she was working on it when she passed away. She captured images throughout nearly the entire twentieth century beginning in the Pictorialist style, then into documentary style captures, and explored portraits of people as she photographed her children and the famous through her work with Vanity Fair. Some of her best-known works are close up textures and flora in nature. She worked with the likes of Edward Weston, Dorothea Lange, and exhibited with one of my other thesis artists; Doris Ulmann.
What advice would you give to your younger self?
To commit to art fully and spend your years in the improvement of your craft.
How do you relax?
I love to read and to visit museums near where I live in the Los Angeles and Santa Barbara areas. Luckily, my husband is willing to spend that time with me and he has, indeed, learned a lot. Also, the climate here in California allows for outdoor living all year-round. I love to drive the twenty minutes through the canyon to Malibu and enjoy walking along the beach anytime.
Is there anything else you would like to add that I haven’t included?
I love to travel with my husband, Howard, and look forward to seeing more of the world. We have been to the British Isles, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, and Lichtenstein along with Vancouver, Hawaii, and a number of the major cities in the United States. This summer we will travel to Rome, the Amalfi Coast, Pompeii, Sicily, Venice, Norway, and England. I hope to meet some those with whom I’ve communicated throughout my program at Warnborough!
How can readers discover more about you and you work? Primarily through my blog, Women out West: Art of the Edge of America. I tweet occasionally, and am on Linkedin as well.
Blog: http://womenoutwest.blogspot.com/
