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"When one is inspired to paint or draw a subject, that intense feeling seems, at times, fleeting. However, in order to paint an idea, one must hold onto that elusive vision if one hopes to bring it to fruition." -- Sherri McGraw
Though formed through studies at the Art Students League of New York, where she later was hired as a drawing and painting instructor, Sherri McGraw's imagination originally emerged right here in Ponca City where she grew up with six siblings, the daughter of former Ponca City Country Club golf pro Gervis McGraw.
At the early age of four, McGraw knew she wanted to be an artist. By 1975, she was at the Goetz School of Art in Oklahoma City for several years under the tutelage of Richard Goetz, the director of the school, who inspired her direction. She also attended summer sessions held by Goetz in Arroyo Seco, New Mexico near Taos, where she and her fellow students ventured out into the desert landscape to paint colorful renditions of adobe ruins.
Leaving Ponca City to further her studies at the age of 23 with two suitcases, $2000, and a six-month scholarship at the Art Students League, Sherri would also serve as a night guard for the Metropolitan Museum of Art until she left to paint full time in 1980, allowing her to study masterpiece paintings from major painters from around the world.
Now residing with her husband David Leffel -- himself a world renowned artist and teacher -- in New Mexico after many years living in New York, Sherri was brought up surrounded by both cowboy and native American culture and imagery as a Kay County kid. That early and constant exposure has lended resonance to her work throughout an immensely successful career.
McGraw set off on a traveling show in 2013 with the America China Oil Painting Artists League that began in the Beijing World Art Museum, then journeyed to Dalian, Tianjin, Wuhan, Hangzhou, and wound up in Shanghai. She is a life member of the Salmagundi Club in New York.
She now sits literally in her sister Sandy Meador's living room in Ponca City for an interview, but figuratively as one of America's most recognized artists and teachers and the recipient of countless awards. Her work has been featured in major museums across the country, including her paintings having been on display for over three decades at the National Cowboy and Western Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City.
The Butler Institute of American Art's Board of Trustees recently presented McGraw with the Medal of Honor for lifetime achievement in American Art.
And so... she intends to put aside her brushes and pick up a hammer and chisel. Sherri is going to learn how to sculpt.
McGraw has been engaged by Carl Renfro and the Renfro Family Foundation to develop a pair of statues or busts for the Standing Bear Museum.
"I am not a sculptor, so I'm learning how to sculpt in order to do these commissions," Sherri says. "I think Carl... his selflessness and his generosity is... is humbling. And I think, you know, he, they're, they're both incredibly, you know, generous to the community."
And learning a new art form after so many years of painting?
"It's an interesting process, yeah, so we'll see. But I mean, if all else fails, I'll do paintings --but I've always been interested in sculpting, so it'll be... it's a very interesting challenge," she says.
NOTE: IT'D BE GREAT TO HAVE A QUOTE FROM MR. RENFRO RIGHT HERE REGARDING SHERRI AND HER WORK, BUT I'VE NO WAY TO CONTACT HIM. MAYBE ONE OF YOU WELL-PLACED PONCA CITY SOCIETY LADIES COULD MANAGE IT?
McGraw's work was featured most recently locally at the Standing Bear Museum, in a still life rendering called "The Homesteader."
"It was actually of a local model who did a lot of homesteading," she says, describing her inspiration for the piece. "And in the background were tools that his great grandfather had made from scratch, you know, carved the wood and had forged the metal. He had actually made these things, and his descendants still have them and value them. So that was pretty interesting to me."
Further pressed regarding her inspiration to become an artist initially, and how that has informed her internationally acclaimed abstract realism stylings, Sherri continues.
"The kind of work I do is light and shadow. So kind of like the Dutch painting, strong light and shadow painting always appealed to me. And you know, the subject matter doesn't matter as much to me as other esthetic considerations in painting," she says.
And her depictions of life in Oklahoma?
"Well, like for the Heritage Museum in Oklahoma City, or for Standing Bear, I definitely pick western subject matter. So it should be Native American work, or you know, western still lifes. That's generally what I would do. The ruggedness and toughness of the people of the west and specifically Oklahoma."
"There's an abstract quality to paint that is interesting to me... shapes and paint quality and edges and so on -- all the stuff that artists work with. The subject matter is an excuse to do those things."
"In both drawing and painting, what I wanted to do was to learn how to paint and draw as well as anyone ever had."
As both nationally acclaimed painter and as a lecturer for art institutions like the Portrait Society of America, Brigham Young University, the Art Students League of New York and the Academy of Art University in San Francisco, where she was awarded an honorary doctorate in 2010, it's safe to say -- mission accomplished.
Now, to chip away at a new skill.
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