Sonja Krastman: Desert Painter

Sonja Krastman is a fine painter who has made art as far back as she can remember. “Nothing was more exciting to me when I was a little girl than a new set of crayons or pencils,” shares Sonja. “I dabbled my whole life in art and wanted to go to art school.” A California native who grew up going to Joshua Tree with her family, not only is she inspired by the desert, but she says it brings back fond memories of long ago. While she splits her time between Joshua Tree and Huntington Beach, she always says her “muse” is in Joshua Tree.

Krastman holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of California Berkeley and a master’s degree from Gonzaga. She studied art at Cal State University Long Beach and Parsons in NYC as well as in several workshops with leading artists. When not making art, she consults in the world of communications and organizational change management. Her work has been in solo and group art shows throughout California and can also be found in collections in the Bay Area, Chicago, Portugal, New York City, Santa Barbara, Los Angeles, Cleveland, Indio, Costa Mesa, and Joshua Tree.

Sonja grew up coming to Joshua Tree, 29 Palms, and Desert Hot Springs nearly every other weekend as a child. Her family lived in South Pasadena, but her Dutch father loved the desert. “As a man who grew up in the Netherlands,” reflects Sonja, “the desert must have felt like the opposite world to him. I have old pictures with my parents in Hidden Valley and other locations. Two places that we would stay that I remember were the Circle C motel and the El Rancho Delores in 29 Palms. My father passed away when I was young, so I never learned why the desert was such a pull for him. But I do know that when I bought my house in Joshua Tree, I felt like my muse was here. It felt so peaceful and creative, and I just felt inspired. Most of my best work has been made in my garage studio here.”

Sonja likes to experiment with both encaustic and acrylics. “I like to see where the material takes me,” Sonja explains. “With my abstracted landscapes, I have an idea of where I want to go and it is a responsive process. With my totally non-objective work, I just start and see what shows up. With either one, one mark begets another and then another, and it becomes a series of decisions – a creative puzzle actually. I guess I hope the viewer looks at the place differently, experiences the feel of the place, or relates to how I saw it when I created the work. Much of my work is from memory, but some start from photos as a loose reference.”

“I seek to capture the magic and mystery of a location. With this and most of my work, it is less about exact imagery, but transporting the viewer into the feeling of the space and evoking an experience.”

Her last two series are a combination of encaustic and ink, completely inspired by Joshua Tree. Encaustic is a wax and damar resin mixture which is applied in layers and fused with a torch to create depth. She then cuts into the wax with ink. In her last series, which has a very white background, she builds up the white ground and then draws with inks and oils. Finally, she fuses the final result. She scrapes the wax back carefully to pull the color back and then layers with more color to add dimension back in. She notes, “All the layering creates some really interesting textures. The layers also remind me of life; we have lots of things that occur that add and detract from life but that also give it its richness and meaning.”

Being in the desert has hugely impacted the imagery in her work. “In the quiet of the desert springs such life,” she muses. “I feel like without all the noise and distraction of the city, there is room to observe better and see more. The amazing colors and details and the feelings the desert evokes – walking among the boulders or through wide open spaces- drive my designs. I see such intense and subtle colors. There is nothing dull about the desert.”

Sonja continues, “There is also magic and mystery here. A waitress at the Joshua Tree Saloon said to me one time, ‘Everyone here is running from something.’ That has always stuck with me. I think we all need space to think a little more clearly, and we have that space here. This idea of space is showing up big time in my latest work where I am stripping down colors entirely to emphasize specific other areas. They are about noticing.”

Her hopes for our desert community are inclusive and generous: “I think the creative community here is so vibrant yet at times also hidden. I kind of wish there was a large area where artists could get reasonably priced studios where we could commune together. I vacillate between hoping the community grows into an even larger more vibrant and thriving arts community, and hoping it remains its somewhat subtle self. No matter what, I hope the spirit, lore, and authenticity of our desert community always remains. Art can be solitary sometimes, and having an artists’ gathering place would be great. The newly formed High Desert Artist group will be a good step towards that.”

Website: sonjakrastman.com
IG: Sonja_Krastman_Art

Katie Nartonis is a writer, curator, film maker and specialist in art and design. Her most recent documentary film, “Jack Rogers Hopkins: Calfornia Design Maverick,” about the late San Diego based mid-century designercraftsman, premiered during Palm Springs Modernism Week in 2023. She is currently writing “Glimpses of The Joshua Tree Dream,” a book on the way we live in the high desert.