Meet Cheryl Gleason | Art Director/Curator and Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Cheryl Gleason and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Cheryl, how has your perspective on work-life balance evolved over time?
Because I have had a job consistently since I was thirteen and a half, work is something that defined much of who I am. I had strong women in my life growing up who worked hard, often too hard and didn’t take enough time for themselves. This established a strong work ethic from a young age. Finding a work life balance is hard, but the older I get the more important it becomes.

As I get older and closer to retirement I feel just as busy as before, but more of a need to fill it with things that enrich my life, because we never know how much more time we have. As a young person we don’t really think about the quality of our time the same as we do when we are older. I still struggle with work life balance, but I want to think I am more coconscious now as I look toward retirement and what that looks like.

I knew I wanted to be an artist from a young age but realized that might not be fully realized till later in my career or even retirement. I have worked on my art more and more as I have gotten older, making that my time as I prepare to let go of my career. My current job as an Art Director/Curator of a Gallery has helped me in my artistic goals of becoming immersed in the Art Community. Continually being around art and artists at times doesn’t feel like work.

Can you open up a bit about your work and career? We’re big fans and we’d love for our community to learn more about your work.
Cheryl Gleason is a multi-disciplinary artist living and working in the Sacramento area. Her non-

figurative and abstract work reflects places and imagery that have made an impression on her

unconscious mind. While, generally, she does not use photographs as direct references in her work,

locales, images, shapes and textures captured in photographs may show up in her artwork, sometimes

years after they were recorded. While every work starts with scribbles on a panel, eventually, through

color, shape, line, texture and composition, a landscape of Cheryl’s unconscious mind emerges.

Cheryl’s work is unique in that it includes multiple vantage points in a single work. Juxtaposing “birds

eye views” and “elevation views” in the same painting results in interesting and dynamic pieces.

Cheryl’s primary medium is oil and cold wax on panel, but she also works in encaustic, up-

cycled, and mixed media. Within the past 4 years, she has started using acrylic. In all her work, Cheryl

strives to create harmonious color, texture, interesting lines and mark making and an overall aesthetic

to elicit a smile, memory, or emotion.

It isn’t easy being an artist and working more than full time as Art Director and Curator at the MACC. Now almost 7 years into her career running an Arts and Culture center in Rancho Cordova, there is little time to work on your own art. Balancing work, family, friends, and social ties, each week becomes difficult to schedule everything in. My art career is getting closer as I get closer to my retirement. I always knew that creating stability and security so I can travel and paint when I retire has always been my goal since I graduated college. I do as much as I can now but know that the future hopefully will allow me more latitude in where I show my work or teach art classes in the future. Until that time I will create as much as I can, when I can and look forward to my second career in life.

Any places to eat or things to do that you can share with our readers? If they have a friend visiting town, what are some spots they could take them to?
The Sacramento area is teaming with Arts, Nature, and great restaurants. Two hours away from the coast and the mountains and lake of Tahoe, Sacramento is but 2 hours away from anything you want to do. I would take my friend to see some of the great art venues around Sacramento, we would dine at great restaurants like Ella’s downtown. A trip to the Amador wine country is a must. With the overcrowded and expensive Napa Valley, Amador wine country and for that matter Clarksburg and Lodi wineries offer amazing wines in both red and white for a connoisseur’s pallet.

for the outdoor days in the California sun, kayaking on Lake Natoma is a great day in nature with plenty of wildlife to see. My friend also loves good craft breweries and Sacramento Metro Area is a craft brew haven.

The Shoutout series is all about recognizing that our success and where we are in life is at least somewhat thanks to the efforts, support, mentorship, love and encouragement of others. So is there someone that you want to dedicate your shoutout to?
While I was attending UC Davis for my bachelor’s degree, I had many great professors such as Wayne Thiebaud, Squeak Carnwath, Mike Henderson, and Cornelia Schultz, however the artist and professor David Hollowell made the greatest impact on me personally and professionally. A professor of Art Studio Painting, David Hollowell went to school in Ithica, NY and graduated with his MFA from Yale University. He is a contemporary pointillist artist, and those who know him closely call him “dot man”. With his mismatched socks, high top tennis shoes he was an artist through and through. Didn’t care for university politics or other matters on campus, he was there to teach and talk about art. He was the most encouraging professor at UCD to me personally. I took the most classes with Hollowell. I still hear his voice while I am in my studio at times. The talk about harmony and color mixing, and that you don’t need more than four colors to make art, just the ability of how to use them. During Studio Painting classes which go for 4 hours, you have much time to absorb and talk about art and personal direction. He told me that I should consider a career in teaching, that I would be a great teacher. Upon graduation, I was promoted in the company I worked for several times. My last job before leaving was Director of Training and Education which proves he was right about the teaching comment.
I am now the Art Director and Curator for the MACC (Mills Station Arts & Culture Center) in Rancho Cordova, Ca., a town just east of Sacramento. The MACC was a blank canvas which I had the honor to shape and create, bringing arts and culture to the community of Rancho Cordova, and beyond. Hollowell’s voice still rings in my ears regularly and has helped shape my to the artist and art director I am today.

Website: https://gleasongallery.com

Instagram: @gleasongallery

Linkedin: @gleasongallery

Facebook: @gleasongallery

Image Credits
Photo by Cheryl Gleason “Ice Cap” Oil & Cold Wax