Today we’d like to introduce you to Sabrina Siebert
Hi Sabrina, thanks for sharing your story with us. To start, maybe you can tell our readers some of your backstory.
20 years ago I left my hometown of Woodson, TX (pop. 269) to go to Los Angeles and seek my fortune so to speak. I never enjoyed school and certainly did not want to continue to college for another four years but I had a rich grandparent and a mother and father who insisted so I enrolled in USC as a Writing for Screen and Television major. It’s an opportunity I of course wish mightily I had made more of, hindsight being much clearer than the beer goggles I had on at the time. But I spent most of those four years working at a bikini store on the boardwalk in Venice Beach, helping my friends in the production program make costumes and do zombie makeups for their film projects, and otherwise running amok.
I graduated with quite good grades, this college being sort of a pay-to-play system like so many others, and absolutely nothing else to show. However, despite being wayward, in over my head, and something of an alcholic at this point, my only-child syndrome made me very eager to please which has always translated into me being a hard worker. It has been my saving grace more than once. Determined to make good on something of my family’s investment in me, I got myself together over the next couple years and broke into the specialty makeup and costume industry where I at last found a group of likeable weirdos and artistic misfits like I fancied myself to be.
I had a wild and wonderful career for over ten years with jobs that took me all over the world and threw me in with some fascinating and incredibly talented people. It was only after years of working around so many toxic chemicals began to take a toll on my health that I began to look for a way out. It so happened that around that time my father, already in his 80s, began to really go down hill and I found myself coming back home more and more often. As exciting as life had been in the big city, it was just as nice at this point (I was around 30) to be back to quietude, back to nature, back home with the armadillos. I made my move complete within two years and found myself the punchline of so many jokes about unemployed millenials living back home with their parents at 32.
My mother was and still is one of the most talented painters I know, and it was she who gave me canvas and acrylics and brushes and encouraged me to get to work. I also started bartending for an old family friend at the local beer shack he owned off the side of the highway. People talk ad nauseum about a higher power guiding our lives, and while I am not really religious, I do look back on my walk of life and find it remarkable how many dark alleys and dead ends revealed themselves to be pathways to safety.
Through the bar I found a solid place in the community where I could be of use; a sympathetic ear, a ride home, a dispenser of liquid relief for the hardworking men and women of the area. It was where I learned the big lessons about life and humanity I somehow missed up until then. Next to making a living being a painter, it was the best job I ever had.
In the meantime I was finding my footing as an artist. I was a prolific worker and after a few years I had more than enough work to start showing professionally. In this period I also met my wonderful partner Jamie, a funny, kind and charming singer with a voice like old Hank Williams who entertained us all for hours playing at the bar during Covid.
We now have a two year old daughter, a bright, hilarious, incredible kid who promises to be my comeuppance for any hell I put my parents through. My painting continues to evolve and my ambitions grow with my skill. Since my subjects are all animals, my end goal is to be successful enough to start some kind of art-driven charity for them. Locally we are in dire need of two things; resources to spay, neuter and find homes for strays and art programs for kids since the schools don’t offer them. I hope to find a way to marry the two and do something productive in the next years.
This has been my story, if I’m lucky it’s not nearly over…thanks for reading!
I’m sure it wasn’t obstacle-free, but would you say the journey has been fairly smooth so far?
No of course not, I doubt you can find anyone that would claim to have had an easy time. I was born with about as many gifts and blessings as the universe can start you off with, I have utilized some to their full potential and squandered others. There are some things I would go back and do differently, mostly anytime I hurt a friend or family member… I would like to go back and undo that, but otherwise all the rough stuff just helps toughen up your feet for walking.
Thanks – so what else should our readers know about your work and what you’re currently focused on?
I am a professional painter. I paint animals almost exclusively and prefer to work in large scale, with kinetic movement and larger-than-life style. I traveled a lot in India and Asia, so those influences are evident in a lot of my work, however I also have a strong Western art sensibility and that tends to come through too…I guess what’s fascinating is that the far Eastern and true Western styles are actually wonderfully compatible and my brain is always working towards a way to marry the two in interesting ways.
What matters most to you?
That’s a very broad question; quick response is my kid, for all the usual reasons. More existentially, you know, being of use, leaving a legacy I can be proud of, living with honor and loyalty and courage. Reading, learning, never retiring. Being respectful to the earth and its other inhabitants, showing gratitude for the gifts our alien overlords gave us. Making people laugh. Trying to be at least a slight net postive, since statistically we humans are not great for our own environment.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://www.toothandfang.com
- Instagram: @siebert.sabrina
