Bham Buzz
Sally Legg
By Mary Ellen Stancill
A moment in the life of artist Sally Legg usually includes a similar version of the following: unloading the dishwasher while flipping through a magazine, while returning phone calls and directing workers re-landscaping her backyard as she reviews architectural plans and prepares to go to a meeting as the director of village enhancement for the Mountain Brook Chamber of Commerce and looks across the kitchen to her easel where her most recent painting rests, requiring just a few more hours of her attention before it is completed and she can make her way out to her backyard studio where she’ll remove the most recent load of fired ceramic bowls from her kiln.

To simply say that Legg is a whirlwind of energy just doesn’t quite cut it. After just a few moments spent with her, you see how her vigor and desire to take on new ventures, to explore new artistic mediums, to plan and multitask, allow her to accomplish so much. As you might suspect, Legg has, as she says, “made every kind of thing and worked in as many mediums as I could.” She has been both a commercial and a residential interior designer, studied landscape architecture and gardening, done sculpture and photography, taught art classes, designed elaborate needlepoint patterns and experimented as a painterin still-lifes and Impressionist-style work to massive abstract murals and faux finishes. Legg also encourages others to pursue their own versions of creativity and to think beyond the usual parameters of music or art and recognize creativity in managerial methods or even in ways to entertain children in a car. She says, “Creativity is a fundamental part of our being. Many people just don’t choose to tap into it.”

With all her activity, it’s important to note that Legg’s current artwork is anything but busy or overwhelming. In fact, in both her paintings and her ceramics (her current artistic focuses), there is a sense peacefulness and serenity. Legg describes her style of painting as “interpretive realism” which she credits to her present fascination with the work of John Singer Sargent. She paints landscapes or the occasional still-life in a subdued color palette, glimpses of Italy, a Montgomery market or a boat in a lake. Her ceramic bowls have flowing, organic folds and jagged edges in one of two shades of cream. She shows her artwork in several galleries and her bowls are sold exclusively at Table Matters. E-mail Legg at sallyslegg@gmail.com
January Birmingham, Alabama

  

 
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