potrero view

A Fire Inside

May 2009

Local Artist Paints Trees

By Sarah Marloff

Potrero Hill resident Sevilla Granger has been painting for as long as she can remember. Growing up surrounded by the trees and mountains of Asheville, North Carolina, Granger’s took her artistic inspiration from the outdoors.  By the time she was in second grade, her art was winning awards. “My Mom still has a little blue ribbon I won for a painting I did ...It was of three violets with little wiggly stems.”

After high school Granger was admitted to the University of North Carolina’s Fine Arts Program, where she studied Textile and Costume Design.  She pursued costuming as her professional career, while painting as a “personal pursuit.”  In 1992 Granger moved to the western reaches of Potrero Hill to work in the San Francisco Opera’s costume shop. When the season ended she traveled to Europe and the Southwest before landing in Los Angeles, were she made her reputation as a Hollywood costume designer, working on such films as Interview with a Vampire.

After a decade in Southern California, Granger returned to the City. “In the U.S. nothing beats San Francisco. While living in L.A. I would frequently return to San Francisco to visit friends. Whenever I would drive back home to L.A. I had a painful feeling of being ripped off by living there.”  On July 4, 2004 she retired from the costume business, secured a job as a textile designer for Pottery Barn’s teen division, and turned her attention back to painting. “The way my life was structured in L.A. just didn’t allow for painting to play a significant role, which was a constant internal struggle. I’m now able to dedicate a good portion of my life to cultivating my artwork. The payoff is phenomenal.”  Her studio is a five-minute walk from her office, both of which are located on the Hill.

Granger found the inspiration for her current work on Palatine Hill in Rome, where, in 2003, she had an “intense spiritual awakening.”  The Northern California environment energizes Granger’s art, and she pointed to abstract expressionist painters, such as Amadeo Modigliani and Franz Kline, as muses for the “spontaneous drama” of her work.  

“I have always had a profound respect and love of trees…Even though I have been painting my whole life, it’s only been in the last seven years that I’ve been studying the process of transforming canvas and paint into a meditative experience. In those seven years, that magical process has become surprisingly more difficult. The deeper I go into them, the more I see there is to represent, and ironically the greater the need for simplicity.”  

Though Granger’s work focuses on nature it doesn’t take the form of typical landscape paintings.  Instead, her pieces might be best described as tree portraits, each one with a unique personality, with a touch of calligraphy in the technique.  Granger is currently captivated by the Monterey Cyprus; though Redwoods are her favorite trees she hasn’t been able to master how to paint them the way she sees them.  “It’s like they’re too hot to touch,” she said with a bright smile.

Granger paints as a way to connect to the spiritual world, and as a form of communication.  “If you’re not effectively communicating to others then, to me, in some ways, you’ve failed.  I love sharing my work. And similar to lots of artists, I like to be by myself creating my own vision – unlike film – working in a vacuum like that is satisfying.”  Granger treats her art as a “second job.  Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work. It’s work. And I love it,” she said.

Granger continually takes classes, often at the San Francisco Center for the Book, located at the corner of 16th and DeHaro streets. Recently she took a course with Mary Beaton, in which she learned how to make paintbrushes from a variety of mediums, such as leaves and sticks, which can add textures to painting.

Granger’s work can be seen during monthly Open Studios at 1890 Bryant Street.  One of her pieces will be displayed in Big Think Studios’ window on 18th street later this month, and in the Fall two of her pieces will be shown at Erickson Zebroski Design Group, also on 18th Street.

For more information on Granger’s work check-out www.villasevilla.com.

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